The Slave
by Alara's Tale
Summary: It started out with an act of assistance, which led to a mistake, and finally to a mystery. Now Adom, with his little brother Yugi, are in the presence of the Prince and his royal guard, and their families' twisted paths are slowly being exposed. AU (Ancient Egypt) with OCs. OCs start out a big part but will eventually become less of a focus. On hiatus until life makes sense again.
1. Chapter 1

**Susan: I DO NOT OWN YU-GI-OH OR ANY OF IT'S CHARACTERS! I just own Adom and any other OC's that I have! Enjoy!**

I threw two more sand bags over my shoulders. They were my last two of the day, and then I would be done, probably a few hours before anyone else. Being a slave isn't any fun, especially when you're a slave hauling heavy bags of sand and blocks of stone around, but it is better than making my family suffer. My family is entirely made up of slaves, but my sisters, younger brother and mother carry water and supplies while I move the heavy things. Though my brother should also be working with me, he is so delicate and small that the guards think that he is better suited for doing a woman's work.

As I trudge up the large hill, I pant slightly from the blistering heat. One of the guards watching us raises his whip for a moment, as if he is going to whip me, but then lowers it slowly when I straighten and place the sacks in the designated area. I roll my shoulders while I am moving towards the recorder who was really just a guard who writes down how many bags you have moved and what time you finished. Once he tallies up my bags and dismisses me, I start to head back home to see if Mother could use my help with making dinner when an older man drops his sand bag just a few meters from me.

_I might as well help him, since I've already done all of my work and there isn't any rule saying that we can't help one-another._ I pick up his bag and set it on his shoulders in an easier position before grabbing another sack of sand from his supply. We walk together up the hill and he talks while I stay silent. When I set the bag in the dumping area and the man goes to tell the recorder two, a few of the other guards come up and use their whips to trap my arms. The leather bites into my skin and I lower my head so that they can't see my face.

The guards don't punish the old man because they know that it was my idea. I always take the blame for things even when it isn't my fault just to make it easier for the other slaves. They drag me to the whipping post and I am chained there while the guards take turns whipping me. My mouth opens slightly but no sound escapes. They ask me questions, but when I don't reply, they use it as an excuse for more punishment. My body is covered in scars from the leather whips from when the guards use enough force to break my skin. Once cut, sand enters and they scar as it burns for days.

The sun is about to start to sink, but still the guards continue. I hear a chariot pull up near us, but I can't focus very well with the leather slicing through my flesh again and again with each fall of the instrument of torture. _Feel the burn, Adom._ Another painful sensation, and I felt blood slowly sliding down my back from below my right shoulder blade.

"Stop." the single command, though spoken quietly, held so much power that the guards stilled.

"Prince!" the four guards surrounding me instantly bowed, and I bowed my head since I couldn't move my body much while tied to the post.

"What is the slave's crime?" I could feel the eyes of the prince of Egypt on me as he circled me. Another man was standing quite close to him, shadowing his every move.

_What does the Prince care about what happens to a slave? They just replace us when we die or are injured._

"He was working with another slave to finish their work early." The bravest guard tells the Prince.

"Is that a crime?" the Prince asks.

"N-"

"Not you. I want the slave to answer me." I shake my head which rolls slightly when I move. "Speak your answer, Slave."

I didn't answer and when the Prince asks me again, I still don't say anything. He backhands me before grabbing one of the whips and proceeding to cut through my flesh and muscle with the braided leather.

Hours pass and eventually the Prince leaves and the guards unchain me. It is very dark now, and as I walk home, I see my younger brother Yugi standing in front of me. I wave, and he smiles until he sees the fresh cuts and wounds on me.

I tell him I'm fine as he latches onto my stomach, careful about not hurting me. I carry him home like that, and he calms down by the time we walk through the door to our house. After setting Yugi on a chair at the table and getting dinner, we eat silently as to not wake our two younger sisters and mother. Yugi is 12, Shani 10 and Naeemah is 7. I am 17.

Yugi goes to bed after dinner, and I wash the dishes out before rinsing the new cuts and falling asleep on the ground under a few blankets.

The next few weeks pass in a blur of work, whippings, and sleep. Every once in a while, the Prince came by during my punishments. He would always order me to speak, and I just shake my head. Yugi comes and gets me afterwards, since I can't stand very well on my own when the guards turn their whips on my legs.

The Prince brought his own whip with him today. I hear it dragging on the ground next to me, and something is attatched to the whip. "Are you going to answer my questions today?" he asks me.

My head hangs low, and I mouth words to him which he doesn't see, just like all the other times.

"Fine then." The whip struck and I lurched as far forward as I could while chained. On the tip of the whip was a sharp, jagged piece of metal. Rough edges tear at my skin, and my mouth opens in a muted scream. Silent tears roll down my cheeks and land on the ground with barely a sound. After a good 50-something lashes, the Prince pauses, and I look up to see Yugi staring at the scene before him from the darkness of the night. Around the platform, torches were being lit so that the Prince could see his handy work. Yugi's face is one of terror as he looks at me.

_I know what he sees. He sees his big brother chained to a post like an animal. He sees the Prince of Egypt whipping me till my back bleeds in rivits onto the stone platform. He sees me kneeling down as I am whipped, instead of standing like I usually do._ I struggle to my feet, my legs barely supporting myself.

The Prince laughes as he sees me rise. "A strong one, aren't you? Are you finally going to answer my questions?"

Again, I am unable to answer how he wants me to. The Prince shoves me to the ground and he brought the whip down, the metal piercing my shoulder and ripping down to my stomach as I roll to avoid getting whipped in the face. "Answer me!" the Prince screams at me.

"He can't." Yugi's small and gentle voice carries over the talk of the guards and the crackle of the torches burning.

"What do you mean that he can't answer my questions!" the Prince growls at Yugi, and I try to get up only to be pushed back down by one of the three men accompanying the Prince today.

"I mean that Adom is unable to speak. No matter what you ask of him, no matter what you do to him, he won't answer because he is physically incapable of answering. Adom doesn't have a voice."

**Susan: Please read & review!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Susan: So here is the next chapter! Thanks to everyone who read this story and a special thanks to everyone who reviewed because that is what keeps me writing! Enjoy!**

The Prince freezes, as do all of the guards. "What?" his voice is fuzzy, and my vision is starting to swim. Yugi's just a blurry image next to me.

Something lightly brushes my back, and I cringe away from it. "Atem, he needs a healer." The thing touching me is the hand of one of the men accompanying the Prince.

"Yami," the Prince warns, but Yami ignores him.

"This isn't the time or the place for your pride to interfere! He is dying Atem! Just get over yourself and call the palace healer, or I will." The Prince is struck speechless, and if I had the strength, I would be smiling. "Fine. Mariku, go get Isis and bring her back immediately. Shadow-travel." There is silence for a moment.

Yami tries to shift me so that he can see how deep some of my more serious wounds are, but I guess that he isn't strong enough because after a minute the hands disappear.

My vision is blackening by the second and I'm starting to become cold. A soft hand is placed on my cheek, and I can hear Yugi trying to get my attention. "Adom? Ma was hoping that if you finish early in a few days, and you aren't taking to blame for anyone, that you could help her at home. Naeemah's birthday is coming up. She's turning eight. Ma knows that you've been really busy lately, but she wanted us all together to celebrate. Have you seen Naeemah recently? She is looking much more-" my hearing cuts off. I don't even feel the pain from all the lashes anymore. It has become a dull feeling that is spreading through my body. My only sense left is the feel of Yugi's hand on my cheek, but even that slips away and I am left in darkness.

I wake up to find myself on a bed much too nice to be one of my family's. The cuts from the whips are bandaged, but they are aching and red is appearing through the white clothes wrapped around me. I push myself up on my arms and try to get out of the bed so that I don't bleed on it. A young girl, no more than Yugi's age, stops me by pushing down on my shoulders so that I am laying flat again.

"Lay still, or they will rip open again." Her voice is soft, but I do as she says as she slowly takes off the old wrappings and replace them with new ones. She talks quietly to me as she works, and doesn't seem to be angry that I don't speak. When she catches me looking at her questioningly, she just smiles. "I already know that you can't talk, Adom. But that doesn't mean that I won't speak to you. While you are in my care, you can teach me signs so that we can converse."

I nod, and then grab her wrist loosely when she turns away, mouthing "Yugi" to her. She doesn't understand, so I try "brother", and after a few tries, she seems to understand. The girl disappears behind a corner and I lay by myself in silence for a little while before she comes back with Yugi following her.

He immediately jumps onto me, and I blink back tears as he lands on the cut running from my shoulder to my stomach. "Adom! I was so worried! You've been asleep for three days! Naeemah is going to be so happy! She's been wishing every night that for her birthday that you would wake up and you did!"

I make a quick motion for pain, and he quickly climbs off. "I'm glad that I was able to wake up in time to celebrate. How late in the day is it?" I ask him.

"A bit after mid-day."

"And I've been asleep for three days."

Yugi nods, a confused look on his face. "What is it Adom?"

"Nothing. I'm just going to have to work late for the next week." I lift my right hand and rub my face, feeling all of the scars that decorate it, and thinking of the new ones that would soon be joining them as I tried to make up all of the work that I had missed.

"Oh, no Adom! You aren't ever going to work back there again!" Yugi said happily, sitting beside me. Isis had quietly left the room during our exchange.

"But how else will we get food and shelter if I'm not working with the rest of the slaves?"

"The Prince was upset about what happened and offered us a place here, at the palace, as servants. You won't have to worry about being punished anymore by those brutes who whip you just for fun!"

"Have you forgotten already that the Prince was one of those brutes?" I ask, unable to believe that Yugi had forgotten that quickly.

"N-no, but Yami explained it! He is one of the Prince's personal guards. Yami said that the Prince thought that you were just refusing to answer him. That's why the Prince got mad. Yami says that the Prince won't hurt you anymore, and that is why he has gotten us places at the palace so that you don't have to work outside anymore." Yugi bites his lower lip and I sigh.

_I can't keep angry at him when he does that freaking sad face of his! Why can't my little brother look less like a little sister?_ "I want to get out of this room now. Will you help me up Yugi?"

"Adom! The healer said that you aren't supposed to get up yet. You'll hurt yourself!" he stops protesting when I push myself out of the bed and almost fall to the floor. Yugi automatically comes to help me, but since I am practically twice as big as him, all that happens is that I end up crushing him underneath me. I force myself up on to my feet, leaning on to the wall for support.

I slowly make my way from the healing chambers with Yugi following me, looking around every few seconds as if we were about to get into trouble. "Calm down Yugi," I signed with one hand. "You need to calm down. Where are Ma, Naeemah and Shani?"

"Down that hall and to the left, but Adom, I really think that you should sit down! The healer is going to be angry!"

"You should listen to your brother more often," the commanding voice came from behind us.

**Susan: Yeah, I know, it is really short, but with this story I like short chapters more, and that usually means that I will update more often. Thanks to everyone who reads and everyone who reviews as well. I really appreciate it!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Susan: I am so so so so sorry about taking such a long time to post this! I've been really busy and didn't even realize it's been so long since I last posted, but can ya cut me a little slack? I was horribly sick for a while and have now just caught up on life again.**

**Alara: Susan doesn't own Yu-gi-oh or anything like that. She really is sorry she is late.**

**Adom's POV**

"Yami!" Yugi bows, and I stare at the Prince's guard. He looks like a taller, older version of Yugi. The only other differences are their hair and eyes. Yami's eyes and tips are crimson, and Yugi's are amethyst.

"Yugi, you don't need to bow around me. What are you and your brother doing wandering around here?"

"We were going back to our room so that Adom could see the rest of our family." Yugi's mood seems to have brightened, and I stare at them.

_So this is the man from the whipping post? Not exactly what I expected the Prince's guard to look like. Yami isn't really that big or imposing. He's smaller than I am by a lot._ I nod and Yami smiles.

"Don't let Isis catch you. Trust me, she won't let you out of that room of hers until you are prancing around if she does." Yami walks closer, and I stiffen the closer he gets. "You better hurry if you don't want your brother to collapse in the hallway, Yugi."

"Oh, right! See you around Yami!" Yugi grabs my hand and starts pulling me down the hallway. We turn left and right so many times that I can't tell which way we came from. When Yugi stops outside a door, I lean against the wall and pant. "Adom? Are you alright?" he asks worriedly.

Signaling that I need a moment, I rest and rub lightly at the wound across my chest. It had started to burn a little while ago and was now insanely uncomfortable.

The door next to us opens, and I see Naeemah's shadowy jade eyes staring up at me. Her black hair is pulled back in a long braid, and she is wearing one of her best tunics, its paleness making her dark features all the more prominent. "Adom!" I pitch forward slightly, but manage to catch myself before I crush my younger sibling. "Big brother!" she had much the same reaction as Yugi did, and immediately I find myself clutching her as she hugs me tightly.

"Naeemah, is that Adom?" Shani asks from inside the room.

"Yes! He's here!" Naeemah be crying because I feel water on my stomach. I pet her hair, trying to sooth her sobs.

"Bring him in Naeemah!" I hear Mother's voice call. Mother's gray eyes are wide, showing unhidden surprise when I am pulled through the door. Naeemah drags me farther into the room, and I am stunned at how lush and beautiful it was. There' s a large bed with what look to be cotton sheets, and chests are pushed up against the walls. "Adom," she moves to hug me, her arms open wide. My mother's face is lined with wrinkles, and her dark hair that Naeemah inherited is hanging loosely around her face. She is wearing a loose fitting shawl-like dress, and on her wrist was the last of her family's heirlooms, a thin gold bracelet with a swirling design carved into it. "Are you alright? How are you feeling? Maybe you should lie down, you look pale. Come now, lay on down Adom." Mother starts to fuss over me, and I let her for a moment, knowing that if I don't she'll become more insistent and stressed.

"I'm fine Mother." I tell her, but she pays me no mind.

As I lay on the bed, I watch the rest of my family sit around me. "It's good to see you Adom." Shani tells me, holding my large hand in her small one. "I haven't gotten to see you in a long time."

It's true. Since the Prince had started punishing me, I'd been getting home later and later, only to wake up long before anyone else to work. In the last few days before my most brutal beating, I'd only gotten a few hours of sleep, which didn't help my wounds heal any faster. "I missed you too. And I am fine. There's no need to worry." I notice how they seem to relax when they see the signs my fingers create.

"Guess what Adom, guess what!" Shani calls, coming out from behind Mother. She looks the most like me, our oddly blond hair and pale green eyes similar in color, though she has much paler skin like Yugi and mine is a dark tan from standing in the bright sun each day.

"What?"

"The Prince and the Pharaoh wish to speak with us tomorrow! It's such an honor, don't you think? Help us decide which outfits to wear, please Brother?" Naeemah begs me with her huge eyes.

_Not the eyes, not the eyes!_ They grow another size, and any resolve I have against my youngest sister crumbles, not that there really was any to begin with. A heavy sigh and I nod while she grabs my hand and starts pulling me towards one of the chests. _Why am I getting dragged around like a doll today?_

"And things fall right back into place." Yugi smiles at me from the doorway, watching as I slowly pull out Naeemah and Shani's most elaborate clothing, only for the most special of occasions, and therefore worn only three times, once at our grandfather's funeral, then our aunt's and finally our father's the previous spring.

"That one?" Naeemah sounds disappointed, but then I pull her hair out of her braid, twisting it so it falls down the side of her neck. While she holds the light-weight tunic up, I take out my own hair tie and wrap it around the end of her hair in a way that shows the tiny turquoise stones. Our grandfather had given it to me when I turned eleven. She looks down, seeing the sparkling on the worn leather. "Adom! Thank you!" Naeemah tackles me again, nearly toppling me to the floor, while Shani watches from behind her.

Shani's expression worries me slightly. It was one of jealousy, and hurt, and in an instant I realized my mistake. I'd given Shani a small amulet that I'd bought by working more hours, but the stone wasn't as fancy, and it didn't hold as much sentimental value as the hair tie did, since the amulet hadn't belonged to our family since it's creation. "Shani," I sign before reaching out my hand. She ignores me, not even looking my way as she settles down on the bed, and Mother walks over to talk with her.

"Adom, will you do my hair tomorrow? You always do a great job." Naeemah grins, and I nod, still watching Shani and our Mother out of the corner of my eye.

"Don't worry so much Adom," Yugi places his hand on my arm. "Shani will get over it soon enough. She isn't one to hold grudges over such petty things like that."

"Why's Shani upset?" the young girl in front of me asks.

"Nothing you need to worry about either." Our brother is as quiet as he always is, but soothing, and my fears receded. "Let's find you something to wear." The multicolor-haired boy points at me. "You can't kneel before the Prince and the Pharaoh in those clothes. Some of Father's might fit you, even if they are really tight."

_Right, crap. I'd already forgotten the reason why Naeemah wanted my help with her clothes and hair._

**Susan: FINALLY, MY LIFE IS MY OWN AGAIN! I'm still sorry, but starting in July, I'm going to try to post every few days, it's just that this year has been really tough on me, so I've had absolutely no inspiration to write.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Susan: Don't own Yu-Gi-Oh or any of the characters. Yeah, I'm really late because my computer screwed up cause of viruses. I hate it, but it is now fixed because of my amazing friend Tite. You gotta love those computer geniuses. Also, I'm changing to past tense, since writing present tense keeps screwing me up, so I'm sorry if you don't enjoy reading part tense as much.**

**FROM NOW ON: 'Adom "speaking" when words are bolded and with single marks'**

**Adom's POV**

I was a bit distressed as Yugi began throwing clothes onto the bed from Father's chest. I tried to motion for him to stop, but if he saw, he ignored me. "Come on Adom. You know that nothing you own is very fancy. You always save your extra work money for us to get new clothing, or jewelry. I'm sure that Father wouldn't mind if you wore his things." Yugi paused as he lifted a calf-length linen skirt with a thin line of golden stitching around the hem. Unconsciously, I began to rub at the cloth over my cut, but stopped before any of my family noticed.

"That would look nice on you Adom. I just hope that it won't look too short on you." Mother took it from Yugi's hands, holding it before me. "It should be fine, don't you think girls?"

"Of course," Shani mumbled.

"Adom, wear that tomorrow! It will be great on you!" my youngest sister was practically bouncing off the walls in excitement.

I nodded tiredly as I moved so that I could sit on the edge of the bed opposite Shani. There was a knocking on the door, and Mother answered it, surprise evident in her posture. Mother talked with whoever was outside in hushed tones, glancing back at me every few moments. "...are you sure?" I heard Mother say with another look towards me. The other person spoke again.

"I will. He's resting now." She nodded before closing the door lightly.

"Who-?" Yugi began, but Mother shot him a look that froze the question on his lips.

"Nothing that concerns you, Yugi. Now, let's let Adom get some sleep. He looks as if he is about to pass out." Mother started to act as if I were a sick child again, pulling back the sheets, and then bringing them to my waist so that I could sleep comfortably without becoming overheated in the hot Egyptian day. She even started to sing to me, something she hadn't done in almost a decade.

"As the day ends,

The night is born,

And dreams begin,

The rift mends,

No longer torn,

And the gods-"

Within moments, my eyes were closing, and I was asleep before the first verse was finished, the pain caused by my largest wound sinking into my dreams with me.

"Adom?" someone was shaking my arm, and I felt my hands twitch as the shaking aggravated the cut across my chest. "Time to wake up. You need to eat something." Blinking rapidly, I sat up, my hand instinctively clutching at the bandages as I moved too quickly and lay back. Shani was staring down at me, her eyes filled with unvoiced worry. "Here." She handed me the end chunk of a loaf of bread, and a cup of water. "The healer came while you were sleeping. She said that you haven't been getting enough food for your size, and quote 'muscle mass'." My younger sibling gave me a look that appeared reproachful, but Shani had never quite mastered the expression as Mother had. "Isis said that you would need to drink this before you went back to bed. Something about helping you sleep." I only now noticed that Shani held a small bottle which she set down next to the bed.

I smiled at my sister while she slowly helped me to sit against the wall at the head of the bed. **'Thank you. Where are Mother, Yugi and Neemah?'** pulling a small piece of the bread off, I gradually ate, taking sips of water every few moments.

"They are working right now. The Pharaoh and Prince should have just finished eating, and their jobs are cleaning up." Shani sat beside me, watching my every movement.

**'I see. What time is it?'** my chest was burning again, and I wanted to pull off the dressings on my wound, but didn't dare while Shani was around for fear of what she might see. From the glimpse I had gotten before when Isis had changed the bandages, the gagged and torn flesh was not something I wanted any of my family to lay their eyes on.

"It must be nearly eight." Her gaze was searching, and I tried to reassure her with a small grin, though it was forced. "Adom, is something wrong?"

**'No. I'm simply tired. Don't worry so much.'** Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I knew that the other cuts from the whips, especially the ones on my back, were still aching and painful, but it was lost in the agony of the gouge. _That damn prince. If it weren't for him, none of this would have happened._ **'Shani, would you mind if I had a moment alone?'**

"Nope. I'll be right outside." She kissed my forehead before strolling out the door.

Deliberately, I unwrapped the bandages, choking on my breath as part of it was revealed. It looked different than before, the edges of the gash a much darker and irritated red. A pasty, semi translucent fluid was leaking out, causing the dressings to stick to my skin, and I felt almost violently ill as some blood swirled though the other liquid, sluggishly mixing together into a light pink solution. _What is that?_ I hesitantly pressed my finger to the blood mixture, feeling the odd texture on my skin as the pain flared. _That really cannot be good._

As I continued down from my shoulder and chest to my stomach, the torn flesh became more inflamed, and the liquid leaked quicker. _I must have stretched it too much. I've got to be able to move more by tomorrow so I don't appear weak before the Pharaoh._ With a small hesitation, I began to rewrap my wound. It hurt more than taking off the dressings, and I grit my teeth as the pressure built. _A-aaah! Damn it!_ My breaths became short, labored, and I couldn't stop my hands from shaking, which made it harder for me to finish tying the bandages.

"Adom? I'm going to come in, alright? I'll just be a moment." Shani opened the door, slipping inside as I leaned back on the bed so I was staring at the ceiling. "Is your chest bothering you?"

I waved her off. _There's no need to distress her._

"I've got to go do my work. Ma and Neemah should be back soon, so you won't be all by yourself for too long." The sticky fluid was still on my hand, and I absent-mindedly rubbed my fingers together while Shani paused at the door. "You had us all worried. Try not to get on any royal's bad-side again anytime soon." She shut the door quietly behind her.

Once I was alone, there was nothing to distract me from the suffocating agony for what seemed like hours. Though the pain never dulled, it seemed that as more time passed, I began to become accustom to it, and I slowly tried to shut it out as much as I could. Just as I was on the cusp of sleep once more, a voice began whispering in my ear. "Don't forget that you are simply a servant. Any acts of defiance won't only fall on you, but your entire family." I shivered as breath ghosted across my ear, and quickly entered the realm of dreams.

**In Adom's Dream**

I was chained to a post, facing four others where each of my siblings and Mother were tied. The ground could hardly be seen through the thick layer of partially dried crimson, the earth already saturated. Behind my family were the Prince, Yami, and two guards, each holding a braided whip. For once I could scream, and so I did, till my throat was raw and then some, until it felt as if I had thoroughly scrubbed it clean with steel wool (A/N: I don't know what they would have used in Ancient Egypt, and it is really late, so I'm not gonna look it up), and I would begin coughing blood with each new breath, but my pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears.

Yugi was crying as he trembled, the obvious pain, fear and betrayal reflected in the eyes of my younger sisters as well.

"STOP!" I begged, closing my eyes as my family was tortured. "Why? Why are you hurting them! They've done nothing!"

"But you have. You angered the Prince, and in turn, the Pharaoh. This is your punishment, now watch!" it was the same voice that had breathed in my ear, making my eyes fly open and search frantically to the sides, trying to catch a glimpse while my family's torment was momentarily pushed away by the shock, only to be brought back full force when the first shriek I'd heard was torn from Mother.

"No," my hands fisted the chains, and I bowed my head. "No. This isn't right!" I braced my feet against the cold stone ground and lurched backwards, tearing the chains from the wooden post. Without any thought, I swung at the Prince while lashing out at the others using the metal rings, but they disintegrated, as if they were never there in the first place. Darkness closed in around first Yugi, then Neemah, Mother, and finally Shani, till all that was left was the lingering image of their tear-stained faces and broken expressions.

**In the real world (Ancient Egypt)**

I woke in a cold sweat, water running in rivets down my cheeks. No one was in the room with me. For a moment I mistakenly believed that the horror that had been my dream was reality, and my family was gone, but the thought quickly perished as I felt my wrists for new injuries from the biting metal cuffs. The only wounds that marred my wrists were the ones from my previous punishments, raised welts and partially healed scabs. Slowly, I gathered my courage before attempting to speak. Nothing came out other than the sound of exhaling air, and I felt the disappointment almost suffocating.

_What did I expect? That I would suddenly be able to say words? That after all this time I was finally waking from a nightmare that felt like years? What a stupid idea. Get a grip Adom. It's not going to happen._ I got out of bed, the pain flaring as I moved, and I almost decided to just lay back down, but I continued to stand, pausing to grasp the edge of the bed's headboard. With shuffling steps, I made my way over to where my trunk, a small, decrepit looking box, had been stored, and began to riffle through it for a new skirt. I changed quickly into another one of my working outfits, and sat down beside the box. The stone that served as the floor reminded me eerily of the floor from my dream, but I shook it off. _It's probably best not to think about that._

**Susan: So? So? Whatcha think? Well, I won't know unless you review, so please do! I really enjoy reading the nice reviews that I have gotten, and it lets me know that people actually read this, and haven't dropped it yet cause of my weird updates!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Susan: So this chapter is a merger between Alara and I, cause I am pretty bad at writing stories when they aren't torture scenes or random battles or well...that type of thing. Dark Magic and Dinosaurs is the only one that I have actually succeed in writing that doesn't involve some sort of bloodlust, and that is full of teenager crap. Alara mostly writes angst, but she can do nice, sometimes love stories when she wants to...which is almost never, cause she stops writing the stories before they get there. Anyway, in response to SorryImmaYaoiFan or YaoiFlavouredRamen (not sure which was the actual pen-name), this might turn into a slash fic, but I'm not sure. Since I don't know, I have no clue who would be paired with who!**

**Alara insert: WITH WHOM!**

**Susan: Thank you -_-. Yes, Adom's history shall be revealed at some point of time when I think it would be preferable (and I actually have details figured out, so not this chapter probably)**

**Alara insert: You mean at all. It won't be in here at all.**

**Susan: SHUT UP AND LET ME TYPE! And if you didn't realize this yet, I am posting another chapter, and this is gonna end up being it, somehow.**

**Alara: Kinda maybe. You should make this into a note for SorryImmaYaoiFan/YaoiFlavouredRamen, and leave it at that.**

**Susan: Not gonna happen, cause I've finally gotten you over and now you can help me with this thing! By the way, did you know Alara was a grammar freak? Cause I sure didn't. *pointed look***

**Alara: Bleeeeeeh. Anyway, Susan doesn't own Yu-Gi-Oh stuff, just her random plot and characters, even she doesn't know where this is going, so it is truly random. Enjoy this next weird blurb of a chapter!**

**Adom's POV**

My hand lazily drifted back into the box, the tips of my fingers brushing along different articles of clothing, and then further down, where it met the edge of the false bottom. Without even glancing inside, I popped the false bottom off and pushed it to the side in order to reach farther into the deeps, pulling out a gold scarab, where it was still hanging from its fraying rope.

"Adom?" I dropped the scarab onto the floor and it popped apart as it hit. It was Naeemah, and she was walking through the door, looking around for me. I hurriedly swept up the three pieces of the scarab and threw them haphazardly into my trunk just as Naeemah caught sight of me and came over. "What are you doing on the floor over here? Don't you know better than to curl up on the floor when you aren't feeling well?"

_Even for a child, she is still like a mother hen._ "**I am fine Naeemah. I was just getting dressed.**" She reached for my hand, attempting to help me up, when all she could truly muster was a frail tugging. Unable to resist, I smirked a bit as I pushed myself up using the wall.

"Don't laugh at me! One day I'll be big and tough like you Adom, and then we'll see who's laughing!" the way Naeemah said it was very convincing, but it was counteracted by her small frame and delicate features. I simply shook my head and glanced back at my trunk before following my youngest sister to where Mother was sitting. If any of my family saw, they chose not to say anything.

"You didn't drink the liquid that Isis gave me earlier." Shani admonished, but I flippantly waved my hand. "We aren't as stupid as you might think."

"**I don't think you are stupid!**" all of my siblings gave me the look, which said that they were skeptical, and Mother wouldn't meet my eyes.

"Then why do you think we don't notice that you flinch every time you have to move? Or that you aren't standing up straight, when you usually have the best posture out of all of us? You should have drunk the pain reliever and gotten some sleep." Yugi glared at me, and I felt guilt start to crush me again.

_I did get some sleep, it just wasn't restful. And here I thought that I was making them worry less by trying to act as close to usual as I could._ "**Sorry. I just didn't want you to all be distracted because of me. Especially since you just began being servants in this place. Is there anything I can do to help out? I'm feeling much better.**"

**(A/N: Alara-"That's almost as much of a lie as one more time." Susan-"Don't ask. This is Alara we're talking about." ^_^)**

"Drink the damn medicine and go to bed Adom!" Shani yelled, shocking not only me, but Mother and Naeemah as well. Yugi simply glanced at the vile on the bedside table, apparently uninterested in Shani's new vocabulary. While Mother was lecturing Shani, I was having my own mini-rant within my mind.

_Well. I wonder where she learned that. YUGI! I TOLD YOU NOT TO SWEAR IN FRONT OF OUR LITTLE SISTERS YOU IDIOT!_ Unfortunately, I was coerced into drinking the liquid with threats of over-exhaustion by work from the rest of my family if I didn't just swallow the thick, bitter fluid. It felt more like mud going down my throat as I attempted to gulp down the disgusting concoction in one motion.

"There. Now was that so hard?" Naeemah asked me in a tone that instantly made me want to roll my eyes. Instead, I settled with a look that said quite clearly, that yes, it was in fact that hard.

"**You should try it. See how much you get down before you decide that you don't need it cause you can't stand the taste.**"

"No thanks. I'm not the one who is in desperate need of sleep."

She has definitely been listening to Yugi talk. He's the only one in our family other than me who likes to use big words. _Who knows what else she picked up. Oh gods._

**(A/N: Susan-"EGYPTIANS HAD MULTIPLE GODS AND GODDESSES, SO NO GOING "that's incorrect" or "~whatever~" IN YOUR HEAD! Jk, you can do that, it just doesn't fit the time period or religious views of ancient Egyptians! I just wanna be factual after my steel wool comment last chapter." Alara-"Don't commas and periods look really small next to all caps?")**

That stupid medicine must have been insanely strong because I was already becoming increasingly lethargic and slowly laid down on the bed.

**(A/N: Alara-"That makes it sound like you're saying "Why is that window purple?" or "Why is that plushie taaaalking to meeeeee?" or "Woooooooooah maaaaaaan."" Susan-"And this is why I shouldn't allow Alara to become sleep deprived.")**

Naeemah climbed on after me, and I felt her curl up against my side, almost like a lost kitten. Shani soon followed, wrapping her arms around one of mine, though she was careful to not touch my chest. I could see Mother smiling tiredly over the top of Shani's head, and Yugi gave her a hug. A drowsy grin danced across my face as I pulled my sisters closer, ignoring my pain, and settled for sleep.

I must have been in a very deep sleep since it took Yugi sitting on my legs and flicking me to wake me up. "Finally," Yugi growled. "That medicine really knocked you out. I thought we'd end up being late for our audience before the Pharaoh and the Prince. Now get up and get dressed." Neither of our sisters were next to me, or even in the room, nor was Mother.

Slowly, I rose, hesitant to stand for fear that my wound had drained more of my energy while I slept. To my relief, I barely had to use the bed to help support my weight, though at the first step, I faltered, turning the step into a meer shuffle. Damn it! Yugi must have seen my distress rising because he placed his hand upon my forearm.

"Don't worry. You'll get stronger after you get more rest. It has only been a few days since you..." he trailed off as I glared.

I knew that he was only trying to make me feel better, but the knowledge that my younger brother knew how truly weak I was just made it more painful of a fact. _It isn't even just that I was able to become so fragile in such little time. How could I even begin to allow that bastard of a Prince to control me? To turn me into this frail excuse for a human simply because he held an instrument of pain?_ For a moment, my thoughts began down a darker path before I pulled myself back to the present. _This is not my fault. This is not because of me. I have done nothing wrong!_ Shaking my head as if to banish the haunting thoughts, I began to dress in Father's clothing. Yugi was silent as I changed.

"**I am done. Let us go.**" Yugi nodded, opening the door so I could maneuver through it. It took a while but eventually we reached a pair of large doors surrounded by guards. Mother as well as Shani and Naeemah were standing outside of them, waiting for us. Once we were all present, a man threw the doors open wide, and we entered. Almost immediately, my eyes were downcast, the universal sign of docility. There was no way that I was going to chance even the briefest flicker of the idea that I was challenging the royal family's power. I attempted to walk without giving away how much my injury's pain seemed to seep into each movement of my muscles. When I saw that my family was beginning to bow, I did the same, gritting my teeth as the muscles seemed to twinge.

"So this is the slave boy and family that I've heard about." The Pharaoh's voice seemed to rumble, and I now knew the reason why everyone was so certain that the royal family was related to the gods. His voice held so much authority that I felt the urge to obey any command given. "Atem, you never went into detail about those injuries you inflicted."

"I apologize Father. Do you wish for me to do so?"

"No. Now that he is here, I might as well have him show me himself. Slave." There was no doubt to whom the Pharaoh was speaking to, and I moved forward slightly, still keeping my head bowed. "Unravel the bandages across your torso."

For less than a millisecond, I almost debated disobeying before my hand were already pulling off the bandages that connected the other wrappings around my shoulders. Ever so slowly, my injury was revealed, and though it could tell from my position that none of my family members could see my front half, there must have been some pretty bad wounds down my back from the partially hushed gasps I heard. I could feel the Pharaoh and Prince's eyes trailing across my marred flesh, taking in the extent of the damage that had been inflicted upon me.

My first instinct was to cover up my injury, the searching looks I was receiving making me shiver. I felt exposed with such a horrible wound in the open, even though I had worked week after week in the sun with smaller cuts and welts evident across my skin. It must have been a few minutes before the Pharaoh and his son stopped staring at me. "Isis," the Pharaoh called.

The small woman slipped in through a side door, kneeling before the royals and then stood facing them. "Yes, my Pharaoh?"

"How long will it take for the slave's injuries to completely heal over? And when that is finished, will he still be as useful as he was previously?"

"Months, at the very least, my Pharaoh. This inflamed skin around the edges of the cut is definitely going to become a large amount of scar tissue. If it doesn't become infected, then Adom simply will not be able to lift as heavy of objects as before." Isis gently pressed her fingertips to the reddened area, which had gone down just slightly since the night before, and I whimpered, my head automatically snapping up so that I was looking at her.

"Calm Adom." Isis commanded, pulling her hand back slightly.

_She's right. Bite back any noise made in retaliation to her touch. Just focus on something else._ There was a small whisper of a noise from the area around the thrones, and my eyes drifted to them momentarily before flickering back to the ground. Both the Prince and the Pharaoh appeared regal in their thrones, their lightly tanned skin seeming natural with the large quantities of gold jewelry adorning their arms and throats.

"You did quite a bit of damage, Atem. Isis, turn him around." She briefly touched my shoulder, and I turned without any more prompt. Lifting my arms slightly, I crossed them across my wound, hiding it from my family's sight. "I must say Atem, I am quite impressed with how strong you have become to inflict such grievous wounds. You will be quite a force in the upcoming battle."

"Thank you Father."

"Upcoming battle, my Pharaoh?" the healer asked, her voice filled with cautious worry. She began to rebandage my injuries, and was quickly done before the Pharaoh had even finished speaking.

"Yes. There has been word that some Hyksos are closing in our border, and there is a fight brewing. Adom, you'll be taking part in this upcoming strife. Until then, you'll be training with some of the other soldiers. You are dismissed, Isis, Adom. But I would like to speak with the rest of the family. Atem, accompany Adom back to his room. I would hate to lose the makings for such a good soldier." The Pharaoh clapped his hands, and we made our way out, though I cast a sad look at my family as I passed them.

Atem continuously grumbled on our way to my family's room, sometimes cursing the Hyksos, other times the new fight, and even a couple of the curses sounded like they had to do with the Pharaoh. "Go on," he told me, opening the door grudgingly. "I am sorry that you are going to have to fight now, especially after I promised a better life for your family in return for my cruelty."

I nodded, and Atem left, closing the door behind him. _So am I, Prince._

**Susan: I felt it best to inform all readers that Alara in fact was not using any drugs, legal or otherwise, during the writing of this story. She was simply incredibly sleep deprived, as it is 1:50 in the morning, and she has been up for over 12 hours, which is almost a new record for her. Just kidding. This is purely how we act when we get together to work on our stories and we don't go to bed until very late, or in some cases very early, so we get a bit odd. Don't worry, we are totally sane. :P**

**Alara: Now Susan, it's not nice to lie to the readers about our sanity. **

**Susan: What are you talking about? I'm perfectly sane! Not so sure about you. ^_^ Hehehe...**

**Alara: Please review if you have enjoyed reading this odd chapter, as I am surprised that you've made it through. Complaints about our A/N will be read, duly considered, laughed at and then ignored, so feel free to entertain us. Thanks!**

**But seriously, we do actually read all of our complaints. We try to answer questions too, but Susan is much better at it than I am. All reviews and comments are loved. Thanks for Reading!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Susan: I don't actually know what to tell you other than I thought that I had uploaded this a few days after Halloween. I only found out that I hadn't when I went to check to see if anyone had reviewed, and to get a bit more inspiration for the next chapter. **

**Alara: Susan doesn't own Yugioh or its characters or anything like that. You all know the drill by now, right? Anyway, have some fun reading what Susan wrote. **

**Yugi's POV**

I stared, horrified, at the Pharaoh. Mother and Father had always taught us that the Pharaoh was kind compared to many other rulers. _This man is nothing by a monster. How could he do that to Adom?_ As my brother was led out of the room, he didn't look at me. _To think that I was so easily swayed to believe that Adom would be treated better here. If he isn't being lashed, he's being spoken about as if he were simply another tool or weapon._

The Pharaoh was speaking to Mother, while Shani and Naeemah kneeled silently. Shani held her pendent in her right hand, her left fisting the edge of her tunic in fury. _I'm surprised that she hasn't had an out-burst yet. I guess that Mother made herself clear about the need for politeness._ Naeemah looked as if she were about to cry, though to me it was obvious that her distress was mostly because of the way Shani was feeling.

"Boy," I bowed my head lower, showing that I was indeed listening, knowing better than to talk. "How old are you?"

"T-twelve, my Pharaoh." I stuttered, not breaking my eye contact with the floor.

"Ah. You rarely worked in the sun, correct? You mostly did a woman's jobs?" the way the Pharaoh said it made my stomach clench. His tone was one of utter revulsion, as if doing a woman's jobs were the worst thing a male could do.

"Yes, my Pharaoh."

"Then you shall do the same thing here. You are to carry water for baths, strip beddings, and otherwise act like on of the women."

"Yes, my Pharaoh." _Thank the gods that's all. I was worried that he was going to force me to fight. I could barely hold the sword when the guards first tried to test my strength, let alone swing it. I probably couldn't hurt someone if I wanted to!_

"Leave." My family and I got up, bowing once more before walking out of the throne room. A young woman, her brown hair cut short, met us just outside.

"My name is Tea. I'm supposed to show you what your duties are to be." She told me, looking me over. I shifted uncomfortably under the scrutiny.

"It's nice to meet you Tea. I'm Yugi." Smiling, I nervously scratched my head, both concerned as to what the other slaves would think of me, as well as how Adom was once again. _He was acting oddly this morning when I mentioned his new weakness. And now after the Pharaoh's orders and choice of wording, Adom will be even more distressed._

"Like-wise Yugi. The rest of you are to go and complete your daily duties. We will see you in the evening in the slaves' quarters for dinner. Let us go, Yugi." Tea led me off to a far part of the palace, where she taught me how to change chamber pots and beddings. Then we moved on to from which well to get water for the baths of important guests, and finally to the kitchen, where she instructed me on bringing trays up for guests who were not eating with the others or the royal family. When Tea finally released me from my "training" we went to the slaves' quarters. Mother, Shani and Naeemah were already there, much to my relief.

"Yugi," Mother hugged me, her faced showing the exhaustion from the previous days as we had waited anxiously for Adom's awakening. Now that he was conscious, Mother allowed herself to get more sleep, though it was broken up from sudden stirrings to check on my older brother.

"Hello Mother, sisters." I grinned weakly, settling beside them at one of the old tables with my dinner. It was some bread and water, but that was fine for me, as I wasn't very hungry.

"Hey Yugi," Shani said around a mouthful of bread, and she coughed once she had managed to choke it down.

"Hi." Naeemah was staring at her own food, not touching it other than to drink the water. "How was your day?"

"Fine, fine. Not too bad, though I wish to get back to Adom. Were you treated alright?"

"Yeah..." she didn't meet my eyes, and I felt more anxiety well up in me. "I met this one very nice slave named Ryou Bakura. He should be around here somewhere. He kept the older girls from picking on me." Though Naeemah didn't normally act it, she could be quite clumsy when her mind was somewhere else. She would drop things that moments before were secure in her hands, and had even once tripped on Adom while he was sleeping at our old house.

"That's good, isn't it? You made a friend." I couldn't understand Naeemah's hesitance towards having friends.

"But then they were mean to him! I just want them to stop!" the childish innocence that Naeemah and Shani had managed to hold onto throughout the years brought a small smile to my face, but it quickly was shadowed in my mind by a feeling of sadness.

_They hold onto this naivety, and though it allows them happiness that we rarely feel, how can they? How long can they keep it? Shani began to see the world for what it is this morning during our audience with the Pharaoh._ "Naeemah, you should be happy that he wants to be your friend, and you two can support each other when the girls try to be mean."

"Alright Yugi." The eight-year-old softly grinned, suddenly looking past me. "Ryou!" Naeemah waved, and I glanced over my shoulder to see a young boy with long white hair and pale skin. He came over quickly, not even paying heed to the girls that I saw mocking him. As Ryou got closer, I saw that he had dark brown eyes, which seemed to hold the same innocence as Shani and Naeemah's, though he must have been at least my age. If my youngest sister hadn't told me that Ryou was a boy, I would have probably assumed that he was a girl from his figure.

Ryou sat across from Naeemah, giving her a smile that almost wasn't there. "Hi." His voice was shy and soft, and I could see hands almost as dainty as mine slowly picking apart his dinner.

"Hello Ryou. I am Yugi, Naeemah's brother." He nodded at me, looking down at his food. "Thank you for standing up for Naeemah."

"It was no problem." Ryou almost whispered, and Naeemah sighed.

"You don't have to be so worried Ryou! Yugi also does jobs like ours. He isn't going to judge you."

_For an eight-year-old, Naeemah sure talks like she is older. She sounds more literate than some of the guards. Then again, they were chosen for their brawn, not brains._ "Naeemah is right. There is no need to be anxious around me."

Ryou nodded hesitantly, catching the eye of Shani. "Who're you?" she asked, causing Ryou to break eye contact with Naeemah.

"Ryou Bakura. I'm a friend of Naeemah's." He murmured, like an embarrassed child in front of his parents.

"It is a pleasure to meet you. I am glad Naeemah has been able to make a friend. How long have you been here?" Mother had turned her attention to Ryou as well, and I could see the tension in his shoulders.

"A-all my life."

"Then you must know the lay-out of the palace quite well." Mother continued her conversation with Ryou while Shani, Naeemah and I all listened in.

"Yes."

"Could you please assist me finding the healer's quarters after dinner? I must say, I am very lost in such a large building."

"Of course," Ryou had a small smile on his face once more, and I figured that he had taken a liking to Mother. Often she filled the role to other slaves while we did our jobs, so it was no wonder that Ryou had probably found her likable if he was as young as he seemed.

"Thank you, Ryou."

After dinner, Ryou led Mother out of the room. My younger sisters followed me as we walked to our room. Naeemah held her bread in her hands, her steps silent against the stone in comparison to Shani's loud footfalls. "Yugi? You've been quiet since dinner." Shani fell into step beside me, leaving Naeemah to trail behind.

"Simply tired. It was a long day."

"You sure nothing's wrong?" she persisted.

"Let's just get to Adom. I'm sure he could use the company." We turned down another hall, stopping momentarily as I pushed open our door. Our older brother was once again on the floor, staring at the opposite wall vacantly. There was a tray by his side, both food and water untouched, but Adom's hand lay on the edge. "Brother? Adom!" I called, shaking Adom. Naeemah and Shani kneeled beside us, the elder waving her hand in front of our brother's face.

"What's wrong with him?" Naeemah crawled onto his lap, pressing her ear to his chest. "I can hear his heart, but it isn't steady. What does that mean Yugi?"

"I-I don't know." _I knew I should have come back quicke. I knew something was wrong all day. How long has he been here like this?_

"Do something!" Shani yelled.

"I just old you I don't know what this is! What am I supposed to do Shani?"

"Nothing." A voice seemed to echo though the room, though I could not see who was speaking. "You aren't supposed to **do** anything, not that you could."

"Who are you?" taking Adom's hand, I clutched it tightly, and Shani moved behind me.

"But that wouldn't be any fun, now would it? Why would I tell a simple child such as yourself something as important as my name?"

"Tell me!"

"Insolent child! But I do like that... We are quite similar, you and I. Be sure to watch your sisters, lest they too become like your dear brother."

"Give him back to us! Give him back!" I could feel the tears beginning to gather.

"Yugi, what is the matter?" Mother entered our room, hurrying to our side.

"A-a-a man di-d something to A-Adom." Shani cried, flying into Mother's arms.

"Where is he?" I had never heard Mother's voice so dark, and the look on her face said she was out for blood.

_Is that really Mother?_

**Susan: I hope you enjoyed this. I've already got a start on the next chapter, because as you read, I thought I had already posted this about a month ago, and have been working on chapter 7. Anyway, if you could review, that would make me very happy. ^_^**


	7. Chapter 7

**Susan: So I got this incredibly weird review, but it had absolutely nothing to do with my story, so I'm just gonna ignore it. ^_^ I apologize that it took so long for me to write chapter 6 that some people forgot what the story was actually about. All I've done up until now is setup for the majority of the plot. Anyway, I just wanted to let everyone know that all of my stories are going to be on hiatus for a while, probably until late June/early July since I am attempting to write a novel and that it when I am hopefully going to have it finished by. Thank you everyone who has been reading my stories, because it means a lot to me.**

**Alara: Susan doesn't own Yugioh, or any of its characters, only her own. How many times do I have to say this? I'm getting kinda bored of it.**

**Adom's POV (This is what happened while the rest of the family was working)**

After the Prince had left, I changed into some less formal clothes and pulled out the scarab. The three pieces glimmered as I rolled them between my finger, immediately finding the carvings along the wings and head. Placing the broken scarab on the ground, I aligned them so that the head as between the two halves of the body. They read:

_**It takes the distrust of one to topple even the greatest empires,**_

_**It also takes the love of one to save them.**_

_**Choose and become either the death or the savior of your land.**_

I stared down at the message, remembering what my father had repeatedly told me over the years. _"You cannot allow yourself to choose wrong when the time comes to pass."_

_Don't worry Father, I won't._

For a moment as I looked down on the golden scarab, it appeared as though the wings fluttered, and I smiled at my foolishness. _A gold scarab can't move its wings._ Continuing to fiddle with the pieces, I glanced up when there was a quiet knock on the door.

Isis walked in, a gentle expression on her face. "Hello Adom. How are you feeling?" she held a tray of food, which she set beside me as she kneeled. Feeling my forehead with a light touch of her hand, she began to murmur to herself. "Fever for four days," I was too tired from my walk both to and from the throne room to eat, though Isis kept asking me to take a bite. This continued while she checked my wounds again, this time she took care to check for anything that could be potentially harmful.

"Come now, are you sure you won't eat?" when I nodded, Isis rolled her eyes, but I could see that she was worried. "Can get up to the bed and lay on your stomach? I haven't looked at your back in a couple of days." I nodded, using the wall and Isis's offered arm as support to get to the large bed.

_How weak I've become is ridiculous! This just isn't right! I shouldn't need others to help me with such simple actions._ The healer was careful while removing my bandages, pausing when she saw me tensing up, or my body convulsed from the pain. Despite the healing that had taken place over the five days since my last whipping, the muscles were still too tender for her to do much without me beginning to tremble.

"Try to relax. It isn't helping you heal by straining yourself so much." The healer told me, and I responded by simply shoving my face into the bed. "Now, now, don't be like that." She laughed, and I couldn't help smiling a bit before wincing as she pressed some salve onto the cuts. "Truly though Adom, you shouldn't worry. Your strength will return in time. Till then, just try to be patient and not do anything that will damage you further. Before you realize, you'll be back to normal." I felt Isis get up from the bed, her feet shuffling across the floor. "Eat your food. I'll be back tomorrow. Goodbye." As the wooden door shut, I heaved myself off the bed.

I made my way back to my spot on the floor slowly, leaning back against the wall. Momentarily, it felt as if I were drifting to sleep, though my eyes didn't close. A pale gray-ness stretched across my sight, before I became lost in it. Mindlessly, I drifted through the nothingness, unable to find anything within the endless gray. Shapes slowly began to form within the gray, simply a shade or two darker than the rest. There were different paths that stretched out, some intertwining with others within my range of vision, while others seemed to go straight out of my sight. Wandering kept me busy for an unknown amount of time, nothing showing the passage of it. Eventually I stopped as I saw a shape off to the side of the road, and I felt an odd sensation tugging me to my left, where the path continued.

To my right, I could see a small familiar hut, the door hanging open with one of its supports broken. Curiously, I walked closer, peering in through the space. The inside was blank, as if nothing had ever been there, nor would ever be. It unsettled me, and I quickly made to retreat from the house when something shoved me against the wall. A hand appeared from the nothingness, seemingly to be pieced together as it pressed me harder. An arm followed, then a shoulder and so on, till an entire body was conjured. There was a mask covering the face, though from his voice I could tell it to be a man.

"So you've finally succumbed to it." Leaning in closer, he murmured.

_What is he doing?_

Gripping my shoulders, he shifted his weight, easily throwing me to the ground. I coughed as my chest hit what felt like stone, clutching at it as I trembled. "What a pitiful display you are. I bet your family is ashamed." The masked man kneeled on my back, forcing my head into the ground as punches rained down. I tried to throw him off but he was only off long enough for me to turn over before he once again had me in his grip.

_Get off me you damn-!_ I grabbed at his shoulders, trying to hold him at arms' length so that he couldn't reach me.

"You failed again," he whispered, tearing his nails down my arms. "You were built to be strong. You are made to protect and yet you keep continuously failing." My jaw ached after he backhanded me hard enough to throw me a few feet. "I can't understand how a puppet such as yourself could be this much of a continuous disappointment." His voice was even, filled with disgust, as he came to kneel beside me. He wrapped his large hands around my neck, pressing down. "I guess your grandfather wasn't the only one who couldn't keep his promises. How can you protect anyone else when you are going to die by my hand now?"

I began to feel dizzy as he slowly crushed my windpipe, his fingers also cutting off my blood flow. My hands desperately clutched at his, trying to pull them off without success. The frantic pumping of my heart could be felt throughout my body, and my lips were becoming a warm numbness. _No...I can't...be..dying..._No matter how I fought, the man simply laughed and pressed harder. _Why now...?_

It wasn't just my physical strength that was faltering, but my will was also seeping away. _I'm...tir-.._ My eyes closed, blocking out the masked face as my heart began to skip beats now that my breath had halted. Groggily, I noticed that the hands had disappeared, and blood flowed in uneven, burning thumps of my heart.

"Adom!" Mother's voice called. Surprise forced my eyes to open once again, and I watched as the unfocused image of the man faded just as quickly as he had first come.

_Mother? But where?_ Distraughtly, I searched for my mother's face in the gray, but she wasn't anywhere to be found. _What if he has gotten her?_

**Meanwhile (Yugi's POV)**

Mother didn't waste any time in trying to rouse Adom from his strange slumber. She briefly touched his cheek and heart before leaping to her feet with agility that had been unknown to my siblings and I. "Adom!" she yelled, not particularly at him, but more at the room itself. He didn't move, and so she gently touched each of us as she had with my older brother. "Yugi, come with me for a moment." She led me to the door, pausing just before opening it.

"What is it Mother?" I asked, anxiously glancing back at Adom.

"You remember the story your father and I always told you about your grandfather?" she slowly took off a small chain with a key that she always kept hidden as she talked.

"Of course." I noticed that Mother seemed to have the beginnings of tears in her eyes and my confusion was beginning to grow.

"It was a lie." Mother pressed the key into my hand before opening the door, pausing briefly to turn to us. "Take care of each other. I'm going to get some help from an old acquaintance."

I nodded, and my sisters did the same beside me. Understanding washed over me as the door closed behind her. _Whoever she is going to will have a price, but I wonder just how steep it will be?_ There was a small part of me that already knew, but like every other child, didn't want to believe it.

It was hours later when Adom finally awoke, and Mother hadn't returned that I had to face the freezing truth. _Mother isn't coming back._

**Susan: Yay, so that is done. Sorry for the lateness, but my life has been really stressful, and even though I had the part with Adom done a while ago, I couldn't think up a way to tie in anything else. If you are one of those people who don't read author notes in the beginning, I am going on hiatus until late June/early July. Please leave a review since they make me happy. ^_^**


	8. Chapter 8

**Susan: So I wanted to thank everyone who has ever read or reviewed my stories, because it means a ton to me. I know that I say it often, but the reviews that I get keep me going. I'm sorry for the long hiatus, but I am back and ready to go! Also, I apologize if Yugi is a little OOC in this chapter. And remember, "Blah blah blah..." is when Adom is using signs or signals to talk with his family. He does not actually have the ability to speak. I know that I got a review sometime that was asking about that.**

**Alara: Susan doesn't own Yugioh, or any of its characters, only her own.**

Yugi's POV

The next morning, I woke up to a silent room. Adom and my younger sisters were still asleep, breathing quietly, but usually I would hear Mother moving about. She always rose first, ready for each new day despite what it might bring. My hand moved to the key that hung around my neck, soundless tears beginning to form in my eyes as I looked at a room void of my mother.

Last night had been filled with tears, as Adom held Shani and Naeemah as they cried, and I just stood by, blaming myself for not trying to stop her. _But then where would Adom be? Was it fate that caused us to lose her? Or did Death want Adom? Was it fate that we would lose one of them? Could I have somehow saved them both?_ Nothing Adom had done had quelled the tears, and as each teardrop fell to the stone floor, I felt my guilt grow. I could tell from Adom's face that he also blamed himself, and that I wasn't the only one who was being crushed by the heavy burden we felt. _And then there was that man's voice. Where did it come from? Is he the one that put Adom in that state? And who did Mother go to in order to get Adom back?_

It was too early for me to wake the others, so I decided to instead clean the room. As I got out of bed, I felt a cold object underfoot. It turned out to be part of the gold scarab of Father's that Adom was constantly pulling out to look at. Crouching down, I glanced around the large cushion that made up our bed, and found the other two pieces. Shani began to shift at this time, obviously not feeling the warm that I had previously provided by sleeping beside her. "Yugi?" she murmured, eyes fluttering open. "Where'd you go?"

I choked back my tears before answering. "I'm right here. Go back to bed for a little while longer." I whispered, not wanting to accidentally wake up my siblings.

"...okay..." I heard Shani sigh quietly as she fell asleep again.

_She must not remember what happened yesterday. Otherwise she would be in tears already._

Gently placing the scarab pieces on the edge of the bed, I changed and decided to go down to the servants' kitchen to get breakfast for the rest of my family after scrubbing at my eyes in an attempt to get rid of any evidence that I had cried recently. Naeemah and Shani would need to be up and ready to work in less than an hour, but I was hoping to let them sleep for as long as possible. _As long as they sleep, they won't remember that Mother's gone_.

Ryou was in the servants' kitchen when I got there, staring blankly at the wall in front of him. He must have either been an insomniac or instructed to serve breakfast to the rest of us this morning, because no one in their right mind would be awake any earlier than they had to be. "Ryou?" I called, entering the small stone room which held a few bags of grain and other necessities for our food.

"EEEEK!" He turned quickly, falling from his perch on the stone slab used as the main cooking table.

"Are you alright?" I asked, hurrying to his side, and gripping his arm as he stood, hand on his hip.

"Yugi! What are you doing up?"

"I couldn't sleep. Now really, are you okay? That must have hurt."

"I'm fine. My hip just hurts a little, but it's nothing compared to a whipping..." There was an awkward silence between the two of us, and Ryou tugged on his long white hair. "...Right, would you like something for breakfast? I already have the bread ready and I brought in the water earlier, so it wouldn't get hot on the walk back." The white haired boy was already moving, grabbing matching chipped, clay plates and mugs from a woven reed basket. "You need five right? For your mother, sisters and yourself. And then you have an older brother too."

"...Actually..." I almost began to cry again, but managed to keep it inside, not having the heart to tell the servant that Mother was gone. He seemed so happy that he managed to remember my family, and that I was speaking to him without the snide remarks that he got from the girls he worked with. "I'm not that hungry this morning, so give my portion to someone else today."

Ryou seemed surprised, pausing as he placed slices of bread on the plates. "Really? You'll be weak if you don't eat in the morning. It's the most important meal, especially if something happens during the day that causes you to be punished in the evening."

"I'm sure. Go ahead and eat it yourself, Ryou, if you believe that breakfast is so important. You look like you could use some more food. Maybe you'd grow taller."

"Says the short one?" Ryou grinned, scooping water out of a large bucket with the cups and handing one to me. "Drink up. You'll get really thirsty here. There isn't any time for breaks between all of the jobs and errands you will have to do."

"Thanks Ryou." I took the cup that he handed me, draining it in only a few mouthfuls, not realizing just how hot I was, despite having grown up in a warmer environment in the hut. It got hot as soon as the sun rose, and didn't being to cool off until the moon took its place. I tried to smile, I could tell that it didn't come out as thankful and happy as I intended.

"Did something happen with your brother?" he asked. "Your mother told me that he only just woke up recently because of his injuries."

"He's fine, just exhausted and currently on bed rest because of Isis's orders. Adom doesn't particularly enjoy it because he can't move around, but he will do as he's told if it is coming from a woman he respects."

"I'm glad. You'd better go back if you plan to wake them and be ready in time. The early gray predawn is starting to show." Ryou seemed a bit worried, but handed me the stacked plates and cups, which I somehow managed to balance.

"Thank you for this. I will see you around today, and at dinner, right?" He nodded as I scurried out, heading for my room. When I reached the wooden door, I kicked it lightly, and waited for one of my siblings to open it. After a few moments, a bleary-eyed Naeemah pulled the door back enough for me to enter and she then helped me set the food on the end of the bed.

"Do I really have to get up?" Shani whined, covering her head with her arms. "I don't wanna go to work."

"Yes, now get moving. I brought you breakfast, and if you don't get up in the next few seconds, I'm going to start tickling you!" I warned her, watching as Shani shot up and out of bed.

"I'm up! I'm up!" she cried, making sure that she was out of my short reach.

"Y-Yugi," I heard Naeemah start to sniffle from behind me. "Mother's-she's gone..." I spun around, pulling her into a hug.

"It's okay. We're all going to be okay." I told my youngest sister as she began to sob. It took a moment for Shani to process what Naeemah was talking about, and then she too was crying. The noise from my sisters' tears woke up our brother, who had a disheartened expression etched across his face as he sat on the bed with his back to the wall. Naeemah clutched at the key hanging around my neck, holding it in her small fist as she wept in an attempt to somehow hold onto the mother that we had already lost.

After a few more minutes of the heart-wrenching wails, I had to put an end to them, at least until we were once again able to mourn in peace. Unfortunately, that time was not now, as we had pretentious people to wait on until this evening when they no longer needed us for ridiculous things. "Come now. I know that we all miss Mother, and we don't want to let her go, but we can't afford to stop doing our jobs, especially with everything that has happened in the last few weeks." Naeemah shook her head, as if refusing to try, and Shani bit her lip.

**"Do you want to get in trouble with the Pharaoh and the Prince? Because that is what will happen if you don't get going."**

Adom told us. I knew that he didn't want to, but he now had to take the role of head of our family since he was the oldest now. It was true that Adom had often acted like the head, and taken care of us, but he left all of the parenting and hard decisions to Mother and Father. It was easy to see that he didn't like that he had to do this to our family. **"Now go."**

I nodded to him, leading Naeemah and Shani to the chest so that they could change while Adom and I picked at the food. Normally he would have been pretty hungry by now after not having eaten much in the last week, but mostly Adom just tore the edges off of the bread and put it back on his plate. What I had told Ryou was true, and I didn't eat even now. Mother's plate was sitting in front of us, and I just stared at it, not sure what to do since she wasn't there to eat it. "So what now?" I asked Adom quietly, not wanting to draw my sisters' attention.

**"We go on. And we figure out what happened."**

Adom looked down at me, eyes locked on Mother's key. The fact that she had taken it off before leaving told me that whatever significance it held to her could help us. Mother had never removed the iron necklace since she pulled it on at our grandfather's funeral. Father had carried the gold scarab at the request of his father, and now Adom and I held the two pieces. They were the most precious things that our family had, entrusted to the two oldest still alive.

Adom usually had the scarab hidden away, since he didn't want anything to happen to it while he was out working. Should he had died for some reason while Mother was alive, I would have been charged with the task, and then Shani after me. The truth was that only our grandfather and father knew why we clung to the pieces so desperately, but it was something that I had always wondered. I touched the key, feeling the heavy iron under my fingertips. It was covered in hieroglyphs, much like Adom's scarab, but the etchings were too worn around the stem and teeth of it for me to be able to read them. The ones on the end were legible, though just barely. I had read it late last night, soon after the others had fallen asleep from exhaustion, and it said: _**Beware the one who holds the-**_

Naeemah turned around as Adom took a small bite of his food. "I'm ready."

"So am I." Shani picked up her breakfast, finished it quickly, and headed towards the door. "We'd better head out. Adom, are you going to be alright after..." She didn't finish her sentence, instead letting the past speak for itself. He didn't respond, simply lying back down.

Naeemah mirrored our sister but took the time to touch Adom's shoulder lightly on her way out. "We'll be back this evening." I was worried about my older brother, and what had happened last night, but I couldn't risk bringing more attention to our family than what had already been brought. Piling the plates once more, I hurried to the kitchen and then to my duties, praying to all the gods and goddesses that I could think of to keep what was left of my family safe.

**Susan: HA! I GOT OVER 2000 WORDS OF STORY IN LESS THAN ONE DAY OF WRITING! WHOOT! Anyway, if you enjoyed, please review. If you've got comments, please review as well. If you have flames, you can review, and I will laugh at you whole-heartedly. The more insane, the more I laugh. :D Thanks for taking the time to read my story!**

**Alara: I also get to read the reviews, and will find any flames extremely entertaining. I'm the beta for this lovely story. Well, other than when I'm watching Free! ._. But besides the flames, we really do appreciate hearing your thoughts on the story. Thanks for reading!**

**Susan: You wouldn't believe the hounding that I had to do in order to get her to beta it within a reasonable period of time. I've had it done for over a week and a half.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Susan: I'm baaack! With another chapter of The Slave! I hope that you have enjoyed reading this far. Thank you everyone who has read, reviewed, favorited or followed. It is nice to know that others are reading this.**

**Alara: Susan doesn't own Yu-gi-oh or anything like that.**

Yugi's POV

My work today seemed to pass quickly as I ran to and fro trying to finish my tasks. The female servants around me snickered quietly when I misplaced things, or made mistakes, and I remembered that Naeemah mentioned that many of the girls she worked with were mean to her. This wasn't anything that I couldn't handle, but I didn't need it after last night. With my mind split between Adom, the key, and the scarab, I felt even more flustered as I got lost within the walls of the palace.

Rounding a corner, my butt and back became well acquainted with the stone ground as I collided with someone quite a bit taller than myself. "What is he doing here?" Glancing up, I saw that a large, stone door was open, and there was a dimly lit room beyond. Large carvings covered the visible part of the wall in the room, but I was too far away to distinguish exactly what they were of.

"A servant?

"Here?"

"Is he a fool?"

"He must be."

"No servant would come here otherwise." I could hear a shuffling of feet as I looked around the cloth covered faces that surrounded me, and I saw odd objects with the same eye on them somewhere on each of the people around me.

"Yugi?" it was Yami's voice, and I turned my head to look at him. He stood to the side, on his guard as usual, which meant that the Prince was somewhere nearby.

"Yami, you know this servant?" one of the figures, a man by the sound of it, asked, and Yami nodded, back straight.

"Yes." Yami paused for a moment, as if debating something. "I asked him to come meet me a few rooms over, but it seems that he got lost and ended up here instead. I apologize that my badly phrased directions caused this interruption."

"It's alright Yami. I am sure that you would never intentionally do something that would create problems for us like this one has." The same man was still speaking, the rest silent since the initial surprise of my arrival. "Which is why I am going to put this boy in your care. Since he is already a servant, we might as well make him your slave, so you can keep a better eye on the servant you seem so friendly with." His voice and words made me believe that there was a double meaning to everything that he said, and I only had to look at Yami to see that I was right, though exactly what else the cloth-covered man meant remained a mystery to me.

Yami seemed to have paled from things that I did not understand, but nodded again. "Thank you for your confidence in my faithfulness to the royal family." He bowed to the covered figures before reaching down to help me to my feet. "Come on Yugi," Yami whispered, pulling me from the room, and leading me down different halls until we came to an empty one where he pushed me against the wall. "What were you doing in there Yugi?" he growled at me, anger evident in his eyes.

"I-I got lost! I swear! I didn't mean to interrupt whatever it was that was happening!" I closed my eyes, sure that I was going to be punished. A fist connected with the wall behind me, right next to my head, but I was left unharmed as I heard Yami sigh.

"You don't realize how lucky you were today! What if the Prince, or worst, the Pharaoh, had been in there? You would be dead right now, and I would have been the one who killed you. If it had been anyone other than Priest Seto, you would have died the moment you stepped foot in that room." Yami shivered, gripping my shoulders so hard that it hurt, and I knew that his hands were going to leave bruises.

"I'm sorry Yami. I'm so sorry. You're going to be punished because of me." Seeing one of the elite members of the royal guard this shaken scared me, and I felt as if a weight had been dropped on me. Everything that had been happening all seemed to hit me again with their full force, and I fell to my knees in front of Yami. Tears were running down my cheeks, and I didn't try to stop them.

"Yugi, let's go." I didn't move, just continuing to cry where I was. "Hey, it's all going to be alright. Priest Seto made you my personal slave. That means that no one can hurt you without my permission, and I can make sure that you won't get into trouble." Yami tried to sooth me, but I was so frightened, not only of the threat that I had unknowingly avoided, but also of the man who had been in my family's room, and the guards and the Prince, who had hurt my brother to the extent that he could barely move around on his own. I was scared of the cloth-covered people in that room, and that I would still be punished for my blunder, but most of all, I was filled to the brim with the fear that more of my family would disappear.

"Yugi!" Yami's voice was harder, and he grabbed my left wrist, dragging me into an awkward hug. "Why are you crying? There is no need for you to be sad."

"B-b-but, it's all falling apart!" I could feel Yami's hand in my hair as I cried, and I leaned into it.

"What's falling apart?"

"My life, my family, everything! And I don't know what to do!"

"What? Yugi, you need to tell me what's going on. This can't just be about what happened today."

So I told him. I told him everything that I could, only leaving out the key, the scarab and what Mother had told me about my grandfather. Everything else, I let the guard know, feeling a tiny bit of the weight disperse._ Adom isn't strong enough to protect us by himself anymore._ That one small thought hurt more than I had guessed it would. No longer could I rely on him to help keep the family safe, and of course it was now that he couldn't that, things became more dangerous than we had ever encountered. Yami didn't say anything for the longest time, even after I had finished the tale and began to cry once more. He just held me, much like Adom had when I woke from nightmares as a child. _I didn't even know that guards could be kind before meeting Yami..._

Eventually, Yami moved his hand from my hair to my shoulder, and pushed me back slightly so that he could look me in the eyes. "I want you to go back to your room. Stay there with Adom, and if anyone comes other than Isis and I, do everything you can to keep him or her out. There's someone I need to have a chat with." Again, there was a hidden meaning behind the words spoken, and I nodded quickly, not wanting to cause Yami more problems.

When we split off, Yami once more had the air of a royal guard, and looked prepared for an attack at any second. I was jumpy the entire way back, hiding behind corners and pillars to avoid everyone I could. Luckily, I didn't pass Ryou. I wasn't sure that I could lie to him again after I had this morning. Adom was awake, staring as the scarab when I entered the room. "Hey," my voice sounded choked, and I tried to clear it quietly.

**"Hello."** He glanced up, eyes widening. **"What happened?"** Adom's right hand clenched into a fist around the scarab, and I saw that he was trembling slightly in anger. **"A guard?"**

_I must look worse than I thought._ I knew that my eyes were red from crying, but I hadn't thought about that as I had walked to the room. "I-I got into some trouble." My brother dropped the scarab instantly, and was out of the bed quicker than I thought possible in his current condition. He grabbed me, pressing his hand across my wrists, back, and calves, the areas that the guards usually aimed for with their whips. "Adom, wait-"

He gave me a look that told me I had better spit out what took place before he got even more upset. "Yami saved me. I'm okay." _Other than the bruises on my shoulders._ "You don't have to worry. He's been protecting me as much as he can. I was made his personal slave today." Adom's eyes narrowed at the word 'slave', but he didn't do anything other than brushing his hand across the slowly healing cut on his chest. It had become an action that he did when a guard, Yami, or the Prince was mentioned.

**"I don't like it. You shouldn't be his slave, and we shouldn't be here. We should be at home."** Adom gave me a hug, his strength almost crushing me, but I knew what he meant.

_If we were at home, none of this would have happened. Mother wouldn't be gone, and I wouldn't be terrified of the masked man that Adom told us about, and I wouldn't be relying on Yami for protection instead of my own brother._ I felt as if I were betraying him by relying on another, but it was clear that with his injury, we would need others to help keep Shani and Naeemah safe from whatever threat had set its sights on us. "Yeah, we should be."

Yami's POV

Once Yugi and I had parted ways, I headed straight to the dungeon. A few of the many prisoners there were from past wars, but the majority were high-ranking criminals from both our city and from the surrounding area. It was uncommon for us to house any that were extremely dangerous, and that could pose a threat to the royal family, instead choosing to execute them, but there was one that we kept in the most secure cell. He was someone that we'd hunted for years; only just managing to capture him a few days before Yugi and his family had been moved to the palace.

For over a decade, the man had been stealing anything of value. Gold and gems were at the top of his list, but in the past he had also taken tapestries and rugs, as well as entire pieces of furniture that the royal family had had transported from far off lands in order to furnish their palace. Other things that he sometime stole were food and drinks, expensive tableware, and from time to time, a slave girl or one of the lesser ladies would go missing along with luxurious clothing.

In all that time, we had known him both by his title and his name, but nothing of his appearance or where his base was. It was only through luck, though none of us in the royal guard would admit it, that we managed to catch him. The oddest thing, as I stopped outside his cell, was that I recognized some of his features from someone who I'd seen around the palace many times, not as a guest, but as a servant.

The King of Thieves' long white hair was filthy from being dragged through the dirt on the dungeon floor, and his wrists were bloody from the thick chains that were clasped around them. Along with the iron, shadows were wrapped thickly around his body, making it nearly impossible for him to move more than a few inches. From what I'd heard through Prince Atem, the Pharaoh had told the guards in the prison that the thief was to be deprived of food until he spoke of where the objects he'd taken had been hidden, but the Thief King's will hadn't been broken yet. He was still given water, just enough to keep him alive, but most of the time the white-haired man simply spit the water at the guards.

I opened the door, taking a step inside with a torch so that I could see the King of Thieves more clearly. "Someone broke into the palace last night."

"Really? Oh, you poor things. What was taken?" he jeered.

"I want to know how they got in."

"And you think that I'd tell you?" the thief laughed loudly, a bellowing laugh that echoed around the dungeon, startling some of the others in nearby cells.

"Yes."

"Wow, you guards are much stupider than you look."

"It was in the south wing, on the third level; one of the usually unused rooms." I gritted my teeth, trying to ignore how this man managed to make my temper flare.

"A good thief never rats on another thief, even if I did know who it was." He was smirking now, his white teeth gleaming in the torchlight.

"Just tell me how they could have gotten into that part of the south wing without being seen!"

"How about no, Yami."

I was taken aback at the fact that the King of Thieves knew my name, though I guess it shouldn't have been that big of a surprise. Along with Mariku and Malik, I was one of Prince Atem's main guards, so it made sense that someone who stole from the Prince would find out information about who would be in charge of the guard. "And why not?"

"I have no reason to."

"Oh, you will, soon enough." I growled, turning my back on the thief and locking the cell door from the outside. "Touzuko Bakura."

**Susan: Thanks to all of the fabulous people who have been reading. I am quite happy to be back to writing this. I can only write for so long on one story before it just ends up dying, so variety is good, no? :) Anyway, review if you wanna, cause it makes me so happy!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Susan: Sorry that this is so late. I know that I said it would be out before the end of August, but I just couldn't write. Well, I could, but when I write and I'm angry or stressed, everyone kinda gets killed off, so I usually avoid it. Anyway, Alara and I got into a fight, so this chapter doesn't have a beta. I hope that there aren't too many horrific errors. Leave me a review or message me if there are any that I need to change desperately. Anyway, I don't own Yugioh, or any of its characters, only my OC's. I hope that you enjoy!**

Yugi's POV

The day was oddly uneventful after my incident with Priest Seto, and if I hadn't been so worried about who might be coming, I would have understood Adom's intense fascination with the scarab. Seeing as it and the key were the only two things of interest in the room, I was left staring at the door. Most of the time Shani and Naeemah kept Mother and us busy outside of work, but we had no work to do, and both the girls were out doing their jobs.

"Adom?" My brother looked up, an eyebrow raised. "I'm sorry I got us all into this mess."

"**What mess? This? Don't worry about it."** Adom's smile seemed forced to me, and he was rubbing at his bandaged chest again. **"It's not like it is your fault anyway."**

_This family is falling apart around me…_ We sat in silence, not sure what we should say to one another after everything that had happened in the last few weeks.

When Yami came into the room early the next morning, I wasn't sure if I was relieved or not. He appeared somewhat distressed, and that worried me. It was like before, in the hallway, where he wasn't the strong royal guard I was used to seeing. Something had frightened him, and I didn't want to know what else could do that to him other than Priest Seto.

"Come, we must go!" he told us, his right hand on his sword, prepared to draw it.

"Waah?" Naeemah mumbled, rubbing at her eyes as she was woken.

"Get up!" Yami growled, eyes searching for any threats. He grabbed Shani's shoulder, shaking her awake, and I was surprised at how quickly she rolled to her feet, fully conscious. Then I was hit with another thought, one that appeared to be much more pressing to me.

"Why aren't you with the Prince and the Pharaoh?"

"I was sent to get you. They want you and your family with them. Now get moving!"

As we were shuttled out of our room, I watched as Adom, Shani and Naeemah each grabbed their most precious objects. Mine already hung from my neck, and I touched the key for reassurance. Adom also snagged a curved knife, from where, I do not know, but he had it in his hand, and somehow it seemed as if it had been made for him. It did not look odd, or misplaced, and I found that fact disturbing even as I raced after Yami and my sisters. Adom trailed behind, looking out for us, and I felt more guilt for my previous thoughts of how he couldn't protect our family anymore.

"What is going on?" Naeemah asked, her voice trembling.

Yami paused, glancing around a corner before motioning us to move once again. "The Hyksos are attacking. Come on, hurry!"

"How did they get into the palace?" I asked as we ran.

"They aren't in yet, but they're inside the city. Now be quiet, someone's coming!" Yami had us crouch in a doorway, though Adom was mostly leaning against te door frame, looking quite pale. We waited, both Yami and Adom holding their weapons ready. A shadow appeared, creeping towards us, and then suddenly Yami had the man against the wall, the sword drawing blood as he pressed it against the man's neck.

"Ryou!" Naeemah yelled, gripping Yami's arm. "Let go! He's a friend!" Yami didn't release him, and instead tightened his hold, making Ryou whimper. "Please! Please let Ryou go!"

When Yami still refused Naeemah's pleads, Adom grabbed Yami's arm and ripped it away from the white-haired boy. "Release me." The royal guard growled, looking up to meet Adom's eyes. Ryou, meanwhile, slid downthe wall, hand over his heart as he fearfully watched the scene unfold, his eyes watering. I wasn't particularly sure what to do, whether to choose my brother's side or just stay out of the confrontation, before blood won out over fear, and I moved to stand beside my brother. "Do you want to die, slave? Is that it? The Hyksos are coming, and they will kill you if I don't first."

I could see it in Adom's eyes, the defiance, the anger, the wretched hatred for the world. And I knew then exactly what was going through his mind, because I had seen the look so many times before. When the guards had tried to break him, when the guards had tried to kill him out in the sand. _I'd like to see you try._

**Susan: Yeah, I know that it is really short, but I wanted to post something, and this was all that I could come up with. The next chapter or two will be very important plot-wise, which is another reason why I stopped here instead of ending in the middle of a huge plot point. Anyway, thanks for reading my fic, and I hope that you enjoyed!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Susan: Sooo, I got this done in less than a month! Wahoo! Jk, I still feel really badly about not having the previous chapter done by the end of August like I said it would be. I hope to get my schedule under control. Hopefully the next chapter will be out by October 12th, so look for it then, though it may or may not have a beta reader because Alara and I are both busy people, and if Alara doesn't have time, and it is in fact completed before October 12th, it will be posted no later than the 12th. Thank you to everyone who reviews, favorites and follows this story. You guys make me wanna keep writing.**

**Alara: Susan doesn't own anything, blah blah blaaaaaah. Anyway, our bestest buddy, who is an amazing writer here on , showed us this hilarious song on Tumblr which featured a sassy Satan.**

**Susan: I'm sure you can find it on YouTube by this point. But seriously, listen to it, or if you know how to navigate Tumblr (I don't, she had to send me the link) find it, cause you won't stop laughing, especially if you have ever watched Supernatural and seen Lucifer from that.**

Yugi's POV

Black erupted from the stones between Yami and Adom, forcing the two apart. Yami seemed to momentarily relax, though Adom attempted to cut the dark thing with his knife, "What is taking so long?" a male voice hissed from the mass. "You were to get the boy and hurry back, not dawdle in one of the hallways!"

"I'm coming! Focus on getting things ready. We depart as soon as we arrive." Yami snarled, grabbing me and pushing me down the hall. The black thing sank back into the floor as y family and Ryou followed once again, though Adom was much more agitated now.

"Yami? Why do they want me?" I asked, watching my feet so that I wouldn't trip as the royal guard pulled me along.

"You're going to help protect the Prince. Hopefully Adom can protect you." Yami was no longer relieved, instead tense as he answered my question.

"Oh. What am I to do?"

"Be quiet and do as you are told once we get to the meeting place. We are almost there." As Yami rounded another corner, I could see a large group of guards, servants and royalty as well as priests and priestesses all huddled together, waiting on their toes for an attack. Adom hugged my close, along with Shani and Naeemah, uncertain.

"Yami!" the Prince called, breaking free of the crowd. "You're late!" there was an odd mix of humor and irritation in his voice.

"I apologize, my Prince. I did not intend to be so." The guard bowed low, his own voice holding a smile. "I have brought him as requested. Come here Yugi."

Adom didn't let me go for a moment, but I patted his arm and he realized he had to release me. Walking forward, I stood a step behind Yami, my head bowed to the Prince. "Do you know what you are doing here?" the future Pharaoh asked me.

"I am here to protect you in any way I can, my Prince."

"Do you do it of your own will, or because Yami told you to?"

"Does it matter? I am here, and I will do as I am told." The Prince seemed to except my answer because he sighed and began to walk off.

"Follow me." The group in the large hall before us watched warily as we came closer. "The girls will stay with Isis, the noble women and the priestesses. You," he pointed at Ryou. "You will stay with them as a guard and servant." My sisters, who had been silent since we'd found Ryou, no longer frowned when the healer took their hands and led them off with Ryou trailing behind.

"Goodbye." They murmured as they left.

"Come on." We continued to follow the Prince, though I looked back to where we'd parted with my sisters. Adom was understandably uneasy, now surrounded by guards, and his hand was creeping towards the knife.

I reached back, touching his wrist and shaking my head. _If he does that this close to the Prince, they'll kill him without a second thought._

"Where is the Pharaoh?" Yami asked, and I tensed, not wishing to be near the man who had praised the Prince for his brutality.

"He chose to go fight, but left me here. Hey, big servant?" I watched as Adom gave a questioning look. "Have you ever fought before?"

My brother nodded, keeping his eyes down, and it took the Prince a few moments before he spoke again.

"Did you enjoy it?" Adom seemed startled by the Prince's question, his eyes wide. This time Adom's response was a quick shake. "I see."

"My Prince, why would you be asking these questions?" Yami grimaced.

"It's of no concern, my friend. And you? I heard that you've become Yami's personal slave." I was surprised that the Prince was once again speaking directly to me.

"Yes, my Prince."

"What's it like?"

"What is what like?" I didn't understand where he was going with his questions.

"What is it like being a slave? Obviously, you do not enjoy it, but what does it feel like to have someone other than your own father ordering you around?"

"**Utterly ridiculous, annoying, and aggravating. Oh, and I forgot to mention the complete hatred we have for those so-called guards."** Adom signed to me, and I had to sigh, a little smile on my face at his remarks, though I believe our silent conversation confused the royal guard and prince.

"It is discouraging and condescending, but what choice do we have? It is either do our jobs or deal with the whippings." My comment seemed to shock the Prince for a moment before he shuffled a bit uncomfortably.

"I am...sorry for my actions before. Yami has spoken with me, and I realize that just because I have the power to do whatever I wish, that does not give me the right. Had I known of your brother's condition, I would not have struck him for refusing to answer me with words."

"Thank you for your apology, but he can in fact hear you. Perhaps it would be best to apologize to him rather than I." As soon as I said that, I regretted it. It was doubtful that the Prince would look kindly on my brazen words, and I waited tensely for whatever would be my punishment.

Instead, the Prince began to laugh. "It seems that your family is filled with interesting characters." He said to me, chuckling. "I believe that I like this family, Yami. You might have to share your slave with me sometimes. It's been awhile since anyone has been so entertaining."

"Alright, Now, my Prince, might we prepare to leave? Malik said everything would be ready."

The Prince stopped his soft laughter, becoming more focused. "We are just about to depart. All that is left is to get the boy ready."

"Yugi, change into these." Yami picked up some fabrics beside the carriage for the Prince. I was hesitant to take them, fearing that I'd damage them in some way. "Go on. While you change, I must speak with Adom." Glancing at Adom and acknowledging his nod, I stepped away to change in as much privacy as possible. "So Adom," I heard Yami speaking again. "I need you to be a guard for the Prince. Since many people know that I am the Prince's personal guard, they will automatically assume that I would not leave the Prince's side, especially in a situation like the current one. Because of this, I am going to be with Yugi while we get out of the city, until we are in a safe area. You need to protect the Prince. Others will be with you, but the majority is going to be surrounding Yugi's carriage in an attempt to confuse the enemy as to who the real prince is. Do you understand what you are to do?'

There was silence for a few moments, probably as Adom considered what he was being asked to do. Finally, Yami sighed and the Prince thanked my brother, something that threw me. It had been strange enough that the Prince had apologized to Adom for the torture he'd inflicted, but to thank him for doing something that wasn't truly a choice, was so far out of the Prince's character that I nearly dropped one of the bracelets that had been hidden within the folds of clothing. I fumbled with it, barely catching it on my fingers before it got away from me, and in turn gained the attention of the royal guard, prince, and my brother.

"**Yugi? Are you alright?"** Adom reached out, touching my arm as I slipped the bracelets on. One was way too big, and I smiled as my sibling showed me that it was actually an armband.

"Yes. I hope that everything goes well, is all."

"It will, as long as we all play our parts correctly. Now get in the carriage." Yami helped me in, and I was surprised at how lavish it was since only a slave was riding in it. The guard must have seen my expression because he held the curtain open for a moment. "Truly, there is no need to worry. Adom and I will protect you and the Prince. I don't doubt that Adom would come running for you and your sisters the moment there was any danger."

"But you said that Adom would have to protect me, though you are now the one to do it? And if you are so sure that Adom will leave the Prince, why would you assign him there?"

"Adom will protect you by protecting the Prince. If he stays with the Prince, then I will have no reason to worry about the Prince's safety. If your brother comes to protect you, then the enemy will truly believe you to be the Prince with all of the guards rushing to protect you. Either way, the Prince will be kept safe."

"I...see." Yami's logic confused me, but I would trust him.

"No you don't. Now just sit quietly and relax. This will all be over soon." The curtain fell closed, and there was some noise as the carriage was lifted. "Let's move out!" the royal guard yelled to the gathering, and we began to move forward.

**Susan: Thanks for reading! I appreciate people reading my stories, and if you guys wanna review, I always love getting them! Alara lets me know usually the same day and they give me a burst of inspiration.**


	12. Chapter 12

**Susan: So I wanted to let everyone know that even though the Hyskos were in fact enemies of Egyptians, I do not know much about them, and so most of the history lesson that Yugi gets will be totally false. Do not think that it is in any way true, because I was too busy and lazy in my few moments of relaxation to do my research. If you care that much about historical accuracy, I'd suggest that you stop reading this, because the only actual facts I will only be using will be ones that I remember off the top of my head. Perhaps if I have time sometime later, I will do the research and make corrections to this chapter and any in the future where there are mini history lessons about the Hyskos.**

**Alara: Susan doesn't own Yu-Gi-Oh or anything like that, only her OC's. It was weird, but Susan actually got this on the 10th, and we've just been making corrections to it since, so it should be grammatically correct, and the story should make sense going off of the rest of the story so far.**

Yugi's POV

It was odd, being treated like royalty. I mean, I was always a slave, nothing more than garbage in most of the royals' eyes, so it was quite a shock being treated as one. Perhaps it would have been easier should there have been another of my family alongside me. The only thing that was even more odd was the idea that the Prince was walking alongside my brother on the dusty road. "Yami?" I called hesitantly, remembering how he had instructed me to be quite.

"Yes, my Prince?" he answered, and I was shocked for a moment before realizing that everyone else except Adom, Yami and the Prince must believe that I was indeed the real prince.

"What exactly is going on in the city?"

"The Hyskos are attacking."

"Refresh my memory, if you wouldn't mind." I asked, hoping that he would and not just leave me in the dark about what was happening outside of our little caravan, not that I even knew much about that.

"They have been our enemy for many years, my Prince. We have been anticipating some form of attack for quite a while, though none of us thought that it us anticipated that they would be willing to sustain such loses in order to reach the palace."

"I see."

"I think that it would be best if we were now silent, my Prince." There was a note of finality in the guard's voice, and I didn't answer, instead inspecting the jewelry I'd had to put on. Most of it was gold with gem inlays, and I was impressed by the craftsmanship. _I guess though that the Prince would only wear the best._ Something felt familiar about the armband, and I quietly slipped it off, careful not to drop or scratch it.

Indeed, there was a single hole on the inside of the cuff that went almost all the way through the gold, and around it there were hieroglyphs, similar to the ones on the key that was currently hung beneath my tunic. On instinct, I pulled out the key, and started to fit it into the hole. Just as I was about to completely fit the pieces together, there was a yell, and the group stopped moving.

More shouts followed, distracting me from my discovery, and I quickly returned the jewelry to their proper places. Only moments after, the cloth was ripped back and Yami was grabbing my arm. "Adom and his charge will meet you soon. Stay low, and don't get caught!" he whispered before shoving me as far as he could. Many men were coming towards us like a giant flood, and I ran in the direction Yami had thrust me.

Yami's POV

As soon as I had Yugi out of sight of the approaching Hyskos, I pulled out my sword, ready to fight. They came fast, and strong, pushing back and killing many of the guards within what seemed to be moments. Luckily, most of the women, children and priests had already split from us, and we'd hoped with our small group that we would be able to move unnoticed away from the enemy until we could once again regroup and plan for a counter attack.

A pair running towards where Yugi had disappeared drew my focus from the battle. I knew that Atem and Adom would meet up with him soon enough, since they'd both headed in the same direction, but it was quite possible that the Hyskos following them would reach either group before all three could prepare themselves for the attack. Irritation grew in my chest as I cut down another enemy, his body dropping and being replaced almost immediately, and it got to the point where I realized that I needed to get to Atem, seeing as I had just made a crucial mistake.

Not only were they being followed by the enemy and unaware of that fact, but I'd also left him in the care of two slaves who I knew almost nothing about. One had an obvious grudge against the Prince, which was not unwarranted in the situation, but I'd seen his strength, even just moving things and standing against the Prince's torture. It was glaringly apparent that if it came down to a battle of strengths between Atem and the large slave, the Prince would not be victorious.

Of course, there was the intelligence of both to be analyzed, but while I knew that the Prince was quite smart indeed, it was completely unknown how intelligent the golem-sized man was. He had created his own way of conversing with his family, and that had to take at least some smarts to achieve. On top of that, Yugi was Adom's brother, and though the younger held no ill will towards the Prince, I didn't doubt that if it came down to blood or obedience, the slaves would choose blood. I'd seen him do it just before we'd left, when he stood his ground beside his brother.

I fought my way to the edge of the battlefield, trying to find Malik in the process. A circle of dead also surrounded him, and he caught my gaze just long enough to get the message before he was once again fighting like the devil he was known to be. There was guilt in my heart for leaving my men to fight without me, but I knew my duty, and that was to protect the Prince, no matter the cost. So I began running, hoping that my mistake hadn't led to Atem being killed, or would before I could reach them and figure it all out.

**Susan: Sooo, I GOT IT DONE ON TIME! WAHOO! This doesn't happen often, as anyone who has made it this far probably knows. Thanks to everyone who reviews, reads, favorites and follows, because you guys make me want to continue to write!**


	13. Chapter 13

**Susan: Hey everyone! Here's the next chapter! I hope you like it.**

**Alara: Susan doesn't own anything, yeah, we all know this already. Do I really have to keep saying it? Oh, and I only read about half of this chapter, cause Susan wrote it like 30 minutes before October 31st ended, and she didn't have time to send it to me.**

**Susan: Just do cause I don't want to worry. And sooooooo sorry that I didn't have it done. ;-D We've both been super busy, so I wasn't surprised that Alara didn't have time to read and correct everything. All mistakes are my fault. Please point them out to me if you see them!**

Yami's POV

It was fairly easy to follow the Hyksos and Yugi, but it took a long while for me to get close. The soldiers were using their strength to keep a steady, fast pace, and the slave boy was light on his feet, staying far enough ahead of his trackers that I even lost sight of him a few times. When I finally did catch the two Hyksos, they were slightly less exhausted than I, making killing them a bit harder than I'd anticipated.

Turning around after they'd been slain, I caught a brief glimpse of Yugi and two other figures approaching each other. My sword, wiped clean and held ready, flashed with sunlight as I crept forward, eyes trained intently on the converging group. There was a moment where all three paused, and suddenly the mid-sized person fell.

I was frozen for a few seconds, just long enough to watch the largest of the three collapse beside the other fallen figure, and then my mind simply went blank. _What? Why would he hurt Adom? I understand why he'd harm the Prince, but what reason would Yugi have to do that to his brother? This makes no sense._

Yugi continued on, and I already couldn't see him by the time I was able to reach the two people on the ground. When I did manage to kneel beside the men, I was relieved to see that neither were the Prince, and I noticed that Adom was not among the fallen either._ But then who are they?_

They didn't wear any distinguishing clothes or had any features that told me of their origins. I also couldn't find any evidence of injuries, but it was obvious that both were dead. _What is going on?_ Leaving the two men, I once again began to hunt down the slave, but I couldn't find him in the dimming sunlight, especially without a torch to help in the search. Finally I had to give up for the night, and after taking the necessary precautions and drinking some water from my waterskin, I fell asleep, curled in on myself in an attempt to keep warm.

Yugi's POV

I met up with Adom and the Prince shortly before the sun fully set at a small oasis. How we knew to walk until we reached the pool, I don't know, and probably never will, but we were all thanking the gods as we sat beside the clear liquid. "Where is Yami?" the Prince asked, scooping water up with his hands and letting it run down his face and arms.

"I do not know my Prince." I paused to take a breath, but before I could continue, the Prince had turned, grabbing my shoulders and shaking me.

"What do you mean that you do not know! Where is my guard!" Adom stopped the Prince by placing his hand on the royal's shoulder with enough force to still the future Pharaoh. When the Price looked up at my brother, the large man shook his head, his eyes holding a warning.

"He told me to run. I believe that he wanted me to escape so that if your subjects found out about the caravan being attacked, they would not believe that you were killed because a body resembling yours was found." I tried to reason.

"Were we winning? I could not see the fighting. Your brother got me away quickly." There was something in the royal's voice that sounded almost desperate.

"I believe that we were, my Prince."

"That's good. The warriors are strong." We sat in silence until the sun had set, and the gelid wind was beginning to creep across our skin. At that point, Adom leaned against one of the trees surrounding the oasis, holding out his arm for me to lay against him.

"Goodnight." The Prince murmured, staring at the water. He looked cold by himself, and I glanced at Adom to see that he was also watching the Prince. My brother nudged my arm, causing me to slip out of his hold and kneel beside the royal.

"My Prince, it is a frigid night. Would you like to sleep with my brother and I to keep warm?" I asked hesitantly, unsure of how the Prince would react to the proposal.

Prince's (Atem's) POV

I was shocked, not only because the slave boy had dared to ask if I would want to be so close to slaves which had never been done, but also because he had even noticed that I was quickly becoming chilled. "I would like that very much." Following him back to his brother, I noticed the larger man had shifted so that both the smaller boy and I could lay against him comfortably. It was odd, lying against those who were so much lower than I, but their kindness killed any arrogant thought that would stem from the feeling.

As I lay down beside that slave I'd tortured so recently, I felt him shift with a little choked sound. "Adom?" his brother's voice was worried, and Adom answered by moving his hand from where it was lying by my side and touching the bandage across his chest. Curiosity got the gest of me, and I reached out, laying my hand on the soft cloth. The noise was repeated, louder than before, and I retracted my hand, only to have it grabbed by the large slave. He held down my hand, obviously not wanting me to try to brush across the wound again. Accepting this, though I didn't appreciate that the man had the nerve to control my hand, I rested my head on his shoulder, quickly falling asleep with the warmth provided by the two slaves.

My stomach rumbled once I was awake enough to hear it, causing me to look down. I'd been so tired the night before that I hadn't even realized I wasn't wearing my usual garments. By the time I had stumbled to the edge of the oasis and splashed water on my face to wake up, the slaves were stirring, though the larger one seemed to go back to sleep. Meanwhile, the smaller of the brothers smiled, but still refused to look me in the eyes. "What shall we do?" He froze as I spoke, obviously unsure of how to respond or act. "Shall we go back, or stay here? Or should we attempt to find a town or village?"

"I am unsure, my Prince." His voice shook a bit.

"Hmm...I know I must have heard it before, but what is your name?"

"It is Yugi Mutou, my Prince."

"Yugi, I see. And your brother? His name is Adom, correct?"

"Yes, my Prince."

"You don't know how annoying that is." I growled, irritation thickening my voice.

"My Prince?" Yugi squeaked, and the frightened aspect made my agitation grow.

"Hearing that! 'My Prince' this, 'of course my Prince', and 'yes, my Prince'! It sounds like a freaking chorus, a never ending chorus!" snapping, to my immediate regret, made Yugi flinch. _Damn it!_ "Look, I should not have done that. I'm not angry with you specifically, but the whole idea. I don't understand why people are required to speak to me that way. I mean, I like my title, and I like having people respect me, but I'm an actual person too!"

Yugi's face stayed mostly hesitant throughout my rant, only changing once I mentioned being a person as well. It became a bit darker, an anger creeping into his irises. "Person or monster?" I thought he murmured, though I couldn't be sure. Had any other person said that, I would have at least hit them for the comment, and quite possibly have had Yami beat them. Instead, because I had already caused his family so much harm, I stayed my hand, not even sure that he'd spoken. The last thing I wished to do was hit him for something he didn't do.

_For all I know, it could have been my own mind._ That thought made me feel ill. _Have I become a true monster?_

**Susan: And done! There's another chapter for all of my fabulous readers! I'm on time this month! Hopefully the next chapter will be updated by the 16th, and the following by the 30th. They might even be longer chapters, depending on my free time.**


	14. Chapter 14

**Susan: So here it is, as promised! Alara didn't have time to correct this unfortunately, but I'll make sure that I get the next chapter to her early enough that she has the time. Anyway, I don't own yugioh, or anything like that that you could possibly try to trace back to me owning other than my OCs.**

Yugi's POV

After the Prince had calmed from his outburst, which had woken Adom, he again asked what my brother and I thought that we should do. This time, now that he was awake, Adom had an idea, and he quickly conveyed it to me.

"Adom believes that we should remain here for now, and head to the nearest village early tomorrow morning. We have water here, so we shouldn't leave it if we will be cause in the heat of the day without it." I explained to the Prince, watching my brother closely as he kneeled beside the oasis.

"You and your brother are correct. I wish we had some food though." I glanced at the Prince, and then around the water's edge.

"If you are hungry, that is edible." The plant that I was pointing to was actually a tree that grew wild near water in Egypt.

"Really? It's a tree!" the Prince exclaimed as I helped Adom peel off his bandages, slowly revealing the somewhat healed wound. There was a thin scab across it that cracked a bit as the skin pulled apart, no longer held together by the wrappings.

"It's a Hyphaene thebaica. There are dates towards the top." I noticed that as Adom's injury was revealed, the Prince was more interested in anything that wasn't in our vicinity.

"I see!" The Prince seemed to take it as a challenge, and began to try to climb the date tree. He was going about it all wrong, but I was amused by his attempts, so I refrained from telling him the correct way while Adom and I had a silent laugh. It was a few minutes before I ended up deciding to let the Prince know about his severe lack of technique.

"You are doing it wrong." Yami spoke, appearing from behind a sand dune.

"Yami!" the Prince called, smiling broadly. "I was wondering how long you'd take!" He leaned against the tree, waiting for the royal guard.

"My Prince, I'm glad to see you standing."

"What did you expect?"

"Well, probably you lying on your back, sleeping like a fool." Yami clasped the Prince's arms, checking him for wounds before moving past to stand by me. "I see you made it out fine."

"Of course! I can take care of myself!" If I'd been a bird, my chest would have been puffed out. Instead, I just smirked and continued to wash the cloth bandages.

"I know. I saw what you did to those two men." He hissed, his voice not angry, but by no means pleasant. My hands froze before I was able to force them to continue moving as to not call attention to our exchange.

"We'll discuss it later."

"I plan on it." Yami shifted, pulling a water skin from his belt and filling it before taking a sip. "So, who wants to get out of here?"

"We are staying another night and leaving early in the morning." The Prince told him, and the guard nodded, sitting below the tree in the shade.

"Okay."

"Aren't you going to help me get the food now?"

"Nope." Yami was grinning at the Prince's whine, but eventually helped the royal get the dates.

The next morning, Adom woke me just before dawn, and after washing quickly, we moved to wake up the guard and prince. Yami was already awake, and scared me have to death by sitting up just before I placed my hand on his shoulder, while it took Adom a while to wake the seemingly dead prince. "Atem! Get up!" the royal guard snapped, and the Prince mumbled, rolling over and trying to keep warm at the same time. It was actually a bit amusing, and I was surprised that I was finding the Prince to be more relatable as I spent more time around him.

"Adom, how are you feeling this morning?" I asked quietly as the Prince and Yami got ready.

"**Fine."**

"I'm glad. Is your strength returning?"

"**Yes."** He was either mad about something, or he was too tired to be thinking normally, because he rarely gave one word answers to questions. Adom had always enjoyed conversing with our family, because we were usually the only ones he could talk with, and so he would try to keep a conversation going for as long as possible.

"Come on. We should get moving. The closest village is about three hours east." Yami told us, and we all began to walk after getting our fill of water. The sun was just beginning to peak over the horizon, and I dreaded how hot it would eventually become today, hoping that we would be able to avoid the heat of the day.

We'd been walking for nearly an hour if I had to guess, and I was feeling the weight of the gold I was wearing, only now remembering that I was still clothed in the Prince's garments. This of course reminded me of the strange armband with the keyhole. Since I was already at the back of the group with Adom, I simply lagged a bit farther behind as I took off the armband once more and began to fiddle with it.

Mother's key slipped in as easily as it had the first time, and I slowly turned the key, hearing a _~click~_ before the key refused to turn. The armband popped open, a hinge hidden somewhere within it, revealing two indents inside the band. One was of an odd shape with curved edges that extended at strange angles. The other was deep and shaped like a diamond, going far into the gold. I hadn't noticed before, but the armband was quite thick, and the key didn't go all the way through.

"My Prince? Might I inquire about something?" I was hesitant to bring it up, fearful that he would be upset that I had messed with his jewelry.

"What is it Yugi?"

"Where did you get this armband?"

"Hmm?" He turned to look at me, freezing as he saw the curved metal resting in my hands with a key sticking out of it. "By Ra, what happened?"

"It seems that my mother's key fit the lock, and I was wondering where you got the armband?"

"My mother gave it to me once I was big enough to wear it. I do not know how she came to possess it. I never thought that an actual key would fit the hole." The Prince seemed truly stumped by this revelation, and I nodded quickly.

"This is indeed strange." Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Adom reaching for something, his hand fisting around it. "Adom?"

He held out a golden scarab that I recognized to have belonged to our father. Adom began to fiddle with the scarab, and soon it lay in three pieces, which he quickly fit into the odd indent as we crowded around to see. Then he pointed to the diamond hole, and gave me a questioning look. "One piece missing perhaps? My Prince, did your father ever give you something that may have fit this?"

The Prince shook his head after a while, sighing. "No. He rarely gave me small gifts, and none would have been that small or shaped correctly."

"Wait a moment." Yami picked up a handful of sand and slowly poured some into the notch. Once it was full, he leveled out the top and poured the sand back into his hand. "If it continues in this pointed diamond form, I think I might know what would fit."

"What?" the Prince and I both cried, excitement getting the best of us.

"A pendant that my father told me to keep safe. I left it hidden in my room at the palace."

"Then I know where we are going as soon as we get to the next village." The Prince had a determined look, and he pointed North, in the direction of the palace.

"You have got to be joking! It's probably overrun by the Hyksos!" the royal guard protested.

"You're point? I want to know what's the deal with this strange collection of objects, and one of the pieces is back at the palace."

"We're all going to die." Yami murmured, a tired expression crossing his face.

"Quite possibly." I agreed so quietly I think Adom was the only one to hear. He nodded as well. _Just perfect._

**Susan: Sooooo? Whatcha think? I'd love it if you would let me know, and also, feel free to tell me if I made any errors in this. As I said, I didn't have my beta to help me out on this one. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it, and I will hopefully have something splendid for you by November 29th, but as many people probably know, the 28th is Thanksgiving, and so who knows what it will end up like!**


	15. Chapter 15

**Susan: Sorry that I'm a bit late, but Alara didn't have the opportunity to beta read this chapter, so once again I apologize for any errors. I hope you enjoy this chapter, and the next chapter will be up sometime around December 20th. Thanks to everyone who reviews, favorites, and follows my story! You guys are amazing! Sorry for the longer gap between chapters this time, but I am going to be very busy for a while. I don't own anything except for my OC's.**

Prince's POV

When we got to the village, I was quite tired. I was used to training and the like, but walking for nearly three hours straight with only short pauses for water was taxing. Yugi had tired about halfway here, and Adom had carried him the rest of the way. How the giant had managed to keep up while carrying his brother and not drinking any of the offered water, I don't know.

"He used to be a slave. He worked in much harsher conditions than this." Yami explained quietly, making me realize that I had spoken aloud. "You should be more careful about what you say around them.

"You are correct, my friend. Perhaps I should learn to hold my tongue." A solemn expression crossed his face as he looked at the two brothers. We were standing on the outskirts of the village, the slaves a little ways in front of us. "I wonder how people will react towards him. And he towards them."

"I expect it'll be interesting no matter what happens. Come no, we don't want to lose sight of them." I followed Yami and the two slaves, careful to not trip over anything. It was actually more of a small city, people bustling through the streets. There was a moment where everyone continued to pass by Yugi, who was still dressed in my usual garments, before someone recognized the clothes and jewelry to belong to royals.

A hushed whisper spread through the crowd, and people began to step out of the way, moving to the edges of the streets. Yugi looked so confused as he glanced back at us that I had to take pity on him.

"You're dressed as royalty. This is how people are supposed to act in a royal's presence."

"What am I to do?" He was shifting uncomfortably, and I tried to smile to ease his anxiety.

"Just stand up straight and appear proud and confident. Yami will take care of the rest." Yugi's look was so trusting and relieved that I felt my guilt rise again. _He trusts me? What a strange boy to continually place his faith in me when I have done nothing to procure it._

"Right." The boy stood a bit taller, his eyes straightforward as our group walked deeper into the town. There was an awkward instant when a man stepped into our path, and I wanted to move in front of the area, but I forced myself to stay where I was.

"I am the nomarch of this providence. My name is Menes. Is there some way that I can be of assistance?" He was an older fellow with dark hair, wearing a white linen skirt and multiple jeweled necklaces.

"We would like housing for the next few nights as well as necessary items for two days of traveling for the four of us." Yami stepped to intercept Menes before he could come any closer to Yugi, Adom and I.

"Of course, of course! Please, follow me. There is a lovely inn close by, and I will personally get you any supplies that you need." The nomarch guided our group down the streets, most of the people still off to the edges.

"Thank you." I felt quite comfortable letting Yami take charge for this, as he'd been doing it since I was a child, but clearly Adom wasn't. He was continuously shifting, as if antsy staying where he was as the two men spoke. When we got to the inn, I waited with Yugi in the entrance while Yami and Adom check the place out. Once they gave us the okay, I allowed Yugi to enter before me, though I was itching to take my rightful place.

"Adom?" Yugi murmured, low enough that the nomarch didn't hear as we walked towards the rooms that Yami had secured for us. The larger slave nodded to him, letting the boy know that he was listening. "There is something we need to talk about."

Adom nodded again, and I saw just a slight twitch in his arm as he did. _What is he thinking about?_ The rooms we were given were quite nice for an inn of this standing, and I wondered briefly how long it would be before I could get a substantial meal and lounge on one of the beds. Each of the rooms had two small beds, but anything would be better than sleeping once more on the cold sand. In fact, that was what I really dreaded about the trip back to the palace.

"Might I do anything else?" the nomarch asked, the innkeeper standing beside him. I hadn't actually noticed that the innkeeper was there until now.

"If you could bring us a meal, that would be fantastic." Yami pulled some coins from a pouch on his belt, and I saw the glint of silver and copper as he passed them to the innkeeper and nomarch. I couldn't help but smirk.

_I guess Yami had the same idea._

"It shall be here as soon as it is ready." The innkeeper and the nomarch bowed, and were off quickly.

When I turned away from the door, I saw that Yugi and Adom were standing together, the younger speaking hurriedly as Adom's face grew more and more grim. His hands were once more fisting for moments before they uncurled into claw-like positions, the action repeating as Yugi seemed to quicken his speech.

_This is very strange. What could be causing such a reaction?_ "Yami?" I looked at my guard, seeing that he too was watching the brothers.

"What is it?"

"What do you think they are speaking of?"

"That's a very good question, Atem. Perhaps it's about the strange puzzle we have encountered?" Yami turned his gaze to the ceiling, where large beams held up the brick roof, a pensive expression on his face.

"But why would Adom appear so distraught?" The older slave no longer had his hands in fists, and instead had his left one pressed against the bandages, his fingers digging in far enough that the wound had opened and blood was seeping through. "It can't simply be that."

Susan: Chapter 15 is done! Anyway, I hope you liked it, and please leave a review if you've got any questions or comments, as I always love to see them.


	16. Chapter 16

**Susan: HAPPY BELATED HALLOWEEN! Hey all you fabulous readers. As it is now November, I will be starting to write The Slave again. There should be at least one update per month, and I'll try to make them about 5000 words each. My life literally got turned on its head, and everything went to hell, so that's my explanation for the last eleven months of silence on my stories. I think it was a good thing I didn't write anything, unless you wanted everyone in every story to die in misery, because that was all that was getting written. To everyone who has left me reviews, favorited, and followed this story, you guys are the only reason why I didn't just scrap it and end up posting my first take of this chapter where everyone died. You all rock. Alara hasn't read this, I don't even remember if I told her that I'd decided to continue writing The Slave, so any and all mistakes are mine. I don't own yugioh, its characters, or anything that could possibly be connected to it. I only own my OCs. Btw, Atem(the prince) is a bit OOC in this chapter, but it was one of the only ways I could think to introduce this new part of the families' intertwined pasts. I also figured out that I confused Atem's father and uncle's personalities a bit when I wrote the scene in the throne room, so I'm sorry to anyone who caught that! Either way, I'm just going to roll with it. Enjoy!**

Yugi's POV

Adom was tearing through the scabs on his chest again, and I wanted to grab his hand even though I knew that he would just shove my hand away. "Please Adom, just listen-!" My brother had turned and struck the wall, not even flinching as the baked brick likely broke a few of his knuckles. It was uncommon for Adom to be so outwardly violent, but certain things pushed him past his breaking point.

His face had twisted into something akin to a snarl, though no sound came out, which made the expression grotesque. He didn't even attempt to talk to me, pushing past me as if to head out the door, but pausing when he realized that the Prince and Yami were standing between the door and himself. "Adom, if you would just listen to me! You have to at least try to understand!" The Prince's golden bands jingled on my wrists as I reached out for my brother and his eyes zeroed in on them, a cold hate forming.

He'd never been like this, at least not in front of me. He then grabbed my wrist and tore the bracelets off, tossing them in the direction of the prince. Adom seized the armband that had fit together with Father's scarab and Mother's key, and nearly broke it as he forced it from my arm.

"Brother, I know you're angry, but I promise that I'd never hurt someone with it unless I had to! I'm nothing like them!" I yelled, trying to get through Adom's anger so that we could actually talk. "I wouldn't hurt you like they did." Yami and the prince were watching silently, unsure of what to do as Adom paced, now holding his broken hand to his bleeding chest.

If there was one thing Adom had always protected of himself, it was his hands. without them, he couldn't speak to us, couldn't work, couldn't take care of the family. And he'd willingly hurt one of them in his rage instead of justly directing it towards me. Rather than striking me as most would have, he'd smashed his hand against the wall, and now he wasn't moving his index, middle or ring fingers on his right hand.

"Please Adom. I'm still me. I'm still your little brother. The shadows don't change anything. I'm not going to turn into one of the men who hurt you with them." I tried to keep the tears out of my eyes as I spoke, attempting to appear stronger than I was.

My brother let me get closer to him, the gold armband still in his left hand, despite using the hand to also hold his right one. I reached out for the prince's property, and Adom placed it in my hand, taking care to not touch me. I could see his fear coming through his angry eyes, betrayal blatantly shown. He turned away quickly, facing the wall as he moved to one of the beds.

The prince and his guard had, wisely, stayed out of things until then. "We need to talk Yugi." The prince growled. "Yami will take care of Adom's injuries while we do."

I glanced back at my brother as I followed the prince into the other room that the innkeeper had shown us to. "What are you keeping from us?" he asked, sitting down heavily on one of the beds.

_Quite a lot, actually._ I shook my head, "Nothing."

"You can't tell me that whatever set your brother off was nothing! I need to know what caused him to react violently for our safety! I'm ordering you to tell me whatever it is you haven't!"

"You have no right-" I felt my usually cool-headed attitude disappear, instead replaced with animosity towards the prince for everything he'd done to Adom and our family.

"I am your prince! I am one of the gods! That gives me any right I want! And what I want right now is to know what you are hiding!" the Prince snarled. Gone was the prince that seemed to have been connecting however slightly with us. All I could see was a younger version of the Pharaoh, high on his power and almighty in his eyes as he looked down on my family in the throne room. "Do you dare defy a god!"

"You are no god to me." The prince's hand connected with my cheek, and I felt tears spring into my eyes in shock.

"How dare you!" He grabbed the front of the royal garments, using his superior strength to lift me from the ground.

"You are a spoiled boy who doesn't understand other people and their hardships and feelings. You only want to know because you do not know already. It has nothing to do with your safety or that of Yami. You and your family has taken enough from mine. I won't tell you a thing about our family's past!" At that, the Prince threw me to the stone floor at his feet, moving to kneel on my chest. I could feel my bones aching under the pressure and my lungs were burning as they failed to expand.

"You have become complacent with the freedom I have given you. I should have punished you when you first began to act out of turn." A sickening smirk overtook the prince's features, and he cocked his head slightly. "Or maybe I should punish Adom? It seems to hurt you more when he is injured than when anything happens to you."

"You and the Pharaoh are exactly alike." I gasped out when the prince moved enough so that I could answer him.

"Tell me what I want to know and things could go very differently. We wouldn't even have to tell Adom about our conversation. He could go on thinking he could protect his little brother, instead of his brother once again causing him harm. I mean, his broken hand is your fault. You'd hate to add a few more wounds to the list, wouldn't you?" That managed to get a small nod out of me, and the Prince smiled. "Now, what did you mean by my father and I are exactly alike?"

"You both are willing to destroy what's left of people to get what you want. There are stories that are told among the slaves of what your father did to that bandit village years ago. That he burned it to the ground while looking for a specific thief. I wonder if it's the same thief you're still hunting for." The prince lurched back, almost stumbling as he stood.

"You have no idea what you are talking about!" he snarled, and I coughed, trying to choke down air as quickly as I could.

"Whatever you say, my prince." I said mockingly, moving to get to my feet. The prince looked to be about to say more when there was a knock at the door.

"What is it?" the prince snapped, wrenching the door open. Yami was standing outside, appearing completely indifferent to the prince's tone.

"Keep your voice down. We've already attracted quite a bit of attention, we don't need any more. The food should be ready soon. Yugi, go into the other room with Adom while the Prince and I talk." Something about the way Yami spoke made me shiver, but I nodded and practically ran to the other room. Adom was sitting on the bed, freshly cleaned bandages rewrapped and only slightly tinged pink. He refused to look at me when I sat down on the other straw bed, but the fact that he wasn't pacing or hitting things was a good sign.

"The prince wanted to know what had gotten you so upset." That got a jerk of Adom's head, his eyes narrowing to little slits as he glared. "I didn't tell him." My brother made a sound like a snort before looking away again.

_How am I supposed to make him understand and trust me now that he knows about my shadow magic?_

**Susan: Yeah, I know. It isn't much. Anyway, I hope you liked it. As I said earlier, from now on I'm going to try to hit a 5000 word mark for each coming chapter and there should be one a month except for the odd blue moon where I write two. If you've got the time, I love to hear what you think. Criticism is always welcome when it is thought out and not just people ranting. Reviews are really what got me to come back to this story, so I hope that lets everyone who reviewed and favorited and followed know just how much they meant to me.**


	17. Chapter 17

**Susan: Sorry that this one is short, I know that I promised to reach 5000 words for each new update. First I was delirious for over a week because I was horribly sick, then I had small children (3, 4, and 6) running around my house because of the holidays, and then I was traveling, so this is the first that I've been able to write, so yeah. During January I will do a chapter hitting 10,000 words to make up for it because I know that I will have time even if I do get ill again. I do not own Yugioh or anything related to it. Enjoy this little bit of background!**

Yugi's POV

With the Prince and Yami talking in the other room, and Adom ignoring me, I had quite a bit of time to think. Of course, my mind didn't stay in the present, or dwell on the hell that was going on around me. Instead I began to think about my family, and how it had been before Father died and Adom took over as the head of the family. Father was stern, always had been, but I always wondered if it was more than him just having a lot of responsibilities.

It wasn't as if our family had been at each other's throats, or that we didn't get along, but there were certain things that Father wasn't going to budge on. Anytime the royal family was mentioned, Father would tense up, like he had a personal grudge against them. If we didn't shut up quickly enough, Father would leave, yelling something about how we weren't to speak of them again. A few times, Father even hit Mother when she disregarded his words and continued to tell us stories about the royal family and how they were in a constant struggle with the Thief King.

Another was that we all had to be back in the house before the sun set. I'd assume that Adom had gotten his fear of shadows from Father if I didn't know better. Maybe the torture that Adom had gone through as a child at the hands of the shadows just made his fear worse. Father had had similar scars across his throat that Adom did, and I snuck a quick look at my brother to see him tracing the raised flesh lightly. I'd noticed that Adom did the same thing that Father always had done when he was worried, touching some scar or injury that was connected to whatever they were thinking of, or in instances when they had yet to be marked by that particular worry, then they would trace the scars on their wrists.

"Adom?" I called quietly, watching as my brother jumped, a wild look in his eyes as he turned to face me. The distrust made my stomach turn, but I focused instead on my brother's fidgiting hands. "Will you listen to me now?"

The hands started to form something that looked like "go away," but then paused, so I looked at his face. With his eyes narrowed, Adom nodded, but didn't move any closer.

"I thought that by keeping it a secret that I was protecting you. That if you never knew, then nothing would change between us, and you wouldn't ever have to worry that I'd lose control or hurt you." I took a deep breath, wondering if I truly wanted to go down this path, but I didn't really have a choice in the matter after he found out.

**Susan: I know, terribly short and explains almost nothing, but I'm running for a plane and don't have time to do anything more. Have a great New Years!**


	18. Chapter 18

**Susan: Howdy everyone! I hope you had a great New Year's (I know I sure did!) and a good January. I promised you a chapter, and that's what I'm here to deliver. I still don't know if Alara has even realized that I've been updating or getting my shared documents to read and correct, but I haven't been getting corrected versions back through email, and my printer is busted so I can't hand her the documents when we see each other, so I'm guessing no to the second one. Anyway, without further ado, I do not own anything but my OC,s blah blah blah, don't sue me for something that I didn't purposefully do, blah blah blah, you guys can probably all tell that this was written when I may or may not have been in a completely clear-headed state, and for that I apologize if something is mucked up and/or inconsistent. All of those irritating problems are mine and mine alone. Shoot me a message or something if there's a problem and I'll fix it! Enjoy this chapter and I hope that I hear from a few of you, cause I always love it when I do! **

Yugi's POV

"Do you remember when you went missing for a couple weeks a few years ago? We all thought that you were just working late and then leaving early, before the rest of us were up. It wasn't like you were usually working in the same areas as us, and it never really crossed our minds the first few days that you might not be coming home. Neemah and Shani were both too little to remember it or even realize that you were gone, but after nearly a week of not seeing you, Mother and I were getting worried. You would at least check in once in a while if you were planning on working for longer hours. So one night I stayed up all night waiting for you to come home, but you never did."

Adom shifted slightly, his right hand going to the scars around his left wrist, rubbing at them without looking down. After letting out a shuddering breath, he responded. **"You came looking. You saw a guard dragging me by my chains."**

I heard a little _~click~_ but I didn't know what it was so I ignored it. "Yeah. I started looking for you whenever I wasn't working or taking little naps. You were terrified and there was blood all over you and I just got so upset. I just wanted that guard gone, to leave you alone and disappear, and then the shadows encircled him and all of a sudden he collapsed. You hit your head on the way down, so you didn't see what happened afterwards, but I couldn't control it. The shadows just went everywhere, tearing at the buildings around us and at you, specifically your wrists, and I couldn't tell if they were going for your cuffs or your body. Things got worse, and finally Mother found us with the shadows all around us like guard dogs, attacking anything that got close. I don't know how she got through, but she did. Once she was near us, the shadows kind of slunk away, disappearing again, and she made me promise not to tell anyone what happened or about what I'd done."

"The marks on your wrists are the same as around your neck. Mother and I put it together that whoever had you had used something similar to what I had to hurt you. With Father dead, we couldn't ask him what it was that could make the shadows or cause the damage you had, and we tried to just forget about it. A couple of days later I saw another guard treating a slave like the one had treated you, and all of a sudden the shadows were back and the same thing happened as with the first guard. Of course, this time there were other guards around, and they all came rushing when he fell down. They blamed the slave he'd been holding, but the man didn't know anything. It kept happening and I couldn't control it, so Mother started having me hold onto little trinkets that I'd focus on whenever someone was being punished. There had been enough of an uproar when the guards started dying. We couldn't afford for there to be any more incidences."

My brother had his hands up to cover his ears, shaking his head with his eyes closed tightly. I could see him mouthing _stop_ and little tears were starting to crawl down his cheeks. Moving closer to Adom, I gently took one of his giant hands in mine. My hands were barely larger than his palm, but he felt the pressure and looked down at me. "They stopped Adom. Mother's idea worked. I learned how to control the shadows, at least to the extent that I wouldn't hurt anyone else unintentionally. That's why I didn't tell you, why I didn't warn you about what I could do. I thought that I'd be able to keep it from you and you'd never have to worry about being accidentally harmed by me. I thought maybe I'd even be able to protect you with them after I mastered them."

Adom made a little choked sound, tugging me closer so I was pressed against him. Another tiny pained sound escaped when I came in contact with the wound across his chest, but he wouldn't let me pull back. Twisting up so that I could look at his face, I saw that Adom was crying into my insane hair, and from the way his hands were twitching like they wanted to fight, was probably reliving some of his memories. Guilt flared up in my chest at having reminded him of what happened and for keeping it from him. Maybe if I'd had just told him to being with it wouldn't have been such a big deal and we could have worked it all out.

_Or maybe he would have completely shut you out. You suddenly had the power that hurt him, left him with scars that would remind him every time he saw them. Do you really think that knowing about you would have done anything but shatter him? It wasn't like he was completely sane to begin with, and those few weeks just made him worse._ The evil little voice in the back of my head murmured, all my fears coming to the fore-front of my mind.

_He's fine! Adom has never done anything to hurt us or make us think that he might. Yeah, he was a bit off afterwards, even more frightened of the dark, but he grew out of it, just like every child. And he wasn't insane, just drawn to dangerous things._

_Like seeing how much he could get away with before the guards caught on? As a child Adom couldn't stop searching for answers he had no business knowing, and were likely to get him and those around him killed! Adom has a death wish! Always taking the blame for others, meddling in the affairs of the guards and those above him, even going as far as stealing. You know as well as anyone that those gifts that he supposedly "worked extra hours for" weren't the product of finishing more work than what was required of him. He may have deluded himself into believing it, but he stole those gifts, or at least the money for them!_ Shaking my head to rid myself of the voice, I glanced at my brother again.

It was true that we could do extra work at certain points during the seasons to make money, as unusual as that was for slaves and their keepers, but the times that Adom was working late didn't match up with those times. He'd try to pass it off as someone being kind and asking for him to do work outside of the norm in exchange for food or beer, which meant that the money we were given for that didn't need to be spent on it, and so could instead be spent on gifts, but that was unlikely as well. Sometimes he would bring home trinkets, or a little bit of money, and Mother and I could always tell that he did it with the best of intentions, but there was something about him on those days that always made us nervous.

_Stop it. Stop it right now! He's my brother. Adom would tell me if something like that was up. He trusts me, or at least he does to some extent now. Perhaps not as much as he did, but we're siblings! And we're all we've got until we find Neemah and Shani._

There was an awkward little cough from the doorway, and Adom shook as his eyes shot up. I did the same, looking at the Prince and Yami with distrustful eyes as they watched us. "What are you doing in here? I told you I had nothing to say to you!" I snarled, shocked and betrayed that they had come in even when I had made it clear that this was a family matter that had no effect on them.

"Dinner has been prepared. Act like the Prince." Yami growled, waiting until I had moved away from Adom and made myself look reasonably presentable before opening the door so that the innkeeper could bring the food into the room. There was two plates filled with meat, surrounded by vegetables and bread, in his hands, and behind him came three more people. One was juggling four glasses of what looked to be beer, while a second was doing the same with cups of water, and the other was holding two small bowls with bread and onion. The last man to enter, the ones holding the bowls, approached first Adom and then the Prince, handing each a bowl.

When the bowl was handed to the Prince, who was still dressed in my slave clothing, he made a very irritated noise, his nose wrinkling up a bit in distaste. Almost immediately the man went to hit him, saying he was lucky that his masters had even requested food for him, but Yami grabbed the man's wrist.

A quick look from Yami and a rumbled "Don't touch my slave" had the man backing off quickly and leaving the room as hastily he could after bowing to me.

The innkeeper began apologizing profusely, but Yami just waved it away, and when the innkeeper turned to look at me, I nodded as well. "Please leave the food and drinks on the table and leave." Yami instructed without much thought. Once the two men were out of the room, the Prince placed the bowl on the table, moving instead to pick up a bit of the meat. He tossed it to Yami, who ate it after smelling it quickly, and after a few more minutes Yami gave his approval.

The Prince scarfed down most of the plate before Yami even made it over to his own plate. Apparently we wouldn't be talking about what they'd overheard for now. Perhaps that was for the best. I didn't know how much more Adom could take of reliving the past, and he was already just staring at his bowl of food like it repulsed him. "Come on Adom, at least eat some of the bread. You walked all day, even carrying me some of it. You'll need to eat something before we start heading back to the palace tomorrow. It's a long walk, and we can't have you collapsing in the middle of the desert."

One thing no one could ever get Adom to do was eat when he didn't want to. We'd learned that after he'd disappeared, when he refused to eat for days. It was only when he fainted on his way to bed one night that we'd realized how far he was willing to go with it and had begun force-feeding him broth and broth-soaked bread just as he woke up and before he went to bed, when he was most willing to listen to us.

I watched as the royal and his guard ate, trying to judge exactly how much they'd heard, but they weren't letting anything show. They just ate in silence, every once in a while looking over at Adom and I from where the two had taken up residence on the other bed. Whenever Yami glanced at me, I tried to catch his eye, but each time I did, I was shocked at how icy it was, but I could see the same look directed at both the Prince and Adom as well, so I was at a loss as to why he was looking at everyone like that.

Yami's POV

What I had overheard Yugi telling his brother had made me nervous. If he'd been behind the sudden decimation of the guards, then he was a much larger threat than I had originally perceived. In fact, I hadn't even thought of him as a threat to begin with, only taking note of him as a possible asset when I'd seen him deal with the two Hyksos. Yugi had just been some kid, and even though I'd seen what children were capable when pushed to desperate places, I'd just taken him to be a kid who was willing to forgive too easily.

_And now that I know about what happened to the guard that Yugi had seen hurting Adom, I have even less of a clue about what has been going through Yugi's mind. By all logic, he should have attacked the Prince and I when he came upon us beating Adom. So why didn't he? What is that boy playing at?_

The not knowing was getting to me and making me more irritable than normal. When Atem tried to ask me a question, I brushed him off, which as usual wasn't a good idea. It prompted the Prince to begin his "I am the prince, and you are supposed to obey and protect me" lecture, one that I'd heard more times than I could count, and usually ended up with Atem angry at me while I tried to protect him from some stupid problem he had caused. This time it ended with me giving him the look I usually reserved for desperate and deadly situations, causing the Prince to shut up so quickly that his jaw audibly clicked.

Adom and Yugi were sitting on their bed, looking like the world was about to end. Yugi had an expression on his face that almost convinced me that someone had just killed his entire family, and Adom still had tear tracks on his cheeks while he just stared at the wall opposite from him. After everyone but Adom had eaten, and Atem had ordered the older of the two siblings to drink one of the glasses of water, we split up to go to sleep. Yugi came with me to the other room, though grudgingly. There really was no good way to divide the group for sleeping, but at least this way I could keep an eye on the boy and keep him away from the Prince if necessary. It also may give the Prince and Adom, well really just the Prince, time to talk. Atem had been acting differently lately, and that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. I was hoping that it was the older slave's effect and that being around Adom would help the Prince to stop acting so high up on his horse.

As Yugi and I settled into our beds, I caught sight of his engraved key. _Where did his family get that? And that weird scarab beetle. Things are making less sense the more time I spend with Yugi and his brother. They are complicating Atem and my lives. I almost wish that it could just go back to the way it was before the Prince ever came across Adom being whipped. But then Atem would still be acting like a royal ass._ I snorted, partially because he really was a royal ass, but mostly because he was still being a jackass even after having the slaves influence him so much.

I didn't bid Yugi a good night's rest as I laid down for bed, but I heard him murmur it quietly as I heard cloth shift. Making sure that my sword and dagger were both within reach, and out of Yugi's, I drifted off, exhausted from our long day of walking and then having to deal with the Prince and his attitude.

I was woken by soft singing, and I turned over in surprise from where I had been facing the wall. Yugi was lying in the other bed on his back, gazing up at the ceiling as he sung.

"As the day ends,

The night is born,

And dreams begin.

The rift mends,

No longer torn,

And the gods sing again.

They tell tales

of joyous days and dances,

and of their powerful reign.

There are no wails

of bitter chances

and the gods laugh again."

The song sounded familiar, so I paused, listening for a few moments, trying to place the music. _Perhaps it's one of those songs that children sing while they are playing? Maybe part of a game?_ That would explain why I recognized it._ But it doesn't actually sound like a children's song. The words are too advanced for a song for playing._ Twisting farther, I finally took a good look at the kid.

Yugi really was a small kid, even for a twelve year old, and I could have joked that his hair was a quarter of his height, but it wouldn't have been far from the truth. His eyes were the only big thing other than his hair about him. They were huge for his face, taking up nearly half of it, and what I'd at first thought was emotion expressed in them was nothing compared to what I was seeing in them now. He wasn't crying, but his hand was clenched tightly around the key in a way that must have been painful with the teeth in his palm. The eye that I could see clearly looked like the pupil was spreading out, not in a circle but in little tendrils that crept across the iris.

"Yugi," I hissed, catching his attention and his gaze. As soon as I could see both of his eyes, I saw that I had been mistaken, and settled down minutely.

"Yes Yami?" he asked, not loosening his grip on the key.

"I was checking to see if you were awake. I am going to go wake your brother and the Prince and then request some food. We need to get an early start today if we want to be near the oasis by nightfall." I don't know what prompted me to keep silent about hearing the small boy sing, but unlike the Prince who never seemed to rely on his instincts, I listened to mine.

"Right." When Yugi got up and half-motioned to the jug of water next to the basin in our room, I nodded on my way out the door. Banging on the Prince's door, I heard a groan that I was all too familiar with, and the heavy footfalls of who I assumed to be Adom. The slave opened the door and motioned me in, pointing at the Prince who was still curled up on his bed and not looking as if he was going to be moving anytime soon.

"ATEM!" I yelled, grabbing him by the leg and starting to drag him off of his bed.

"Noooooooooo. Let me sleeeeeeep. Don't be mean Yami!" he grumbled, turning over and half-heartedly kicking at me in an attempt to get me to leave him alone.

"Did you, or did you not, want to go back to the palace to find my pendent so that we can put all those stupid hieroglyph covered pieces together?" Even that didn't do anything, the prince instead continuing to flop his leg around and hold onto his pillow.

When I finally go almost all of his body off of the bed, just his shoulders and head left on it, I dropped his leg and he went down with a surprisingly loud _~THUNK~_ followed by an "owwwwww". Atem sleepily looked up at me with something akin to betrayal in his features, his hand rubbing his thigh where it had hit the ground. "That was mean Yami. I told you not to be mean."

"You are so childish when you're tired." Shaking my head, I looked at the slave who had been watching us with a mixture of concern and amusement. "Don't let him go back to sleep. I don't care what he says or tries to do, he is not to get back in that bed or fall asleep on the floor." Adom nodded, his expression turning to apprehension as he watched the Prince.

As I left to go down and inquire about food for the morning and to check on how the provisions we'd requested were coming along, I heard Atem ordering the slave to let him sleep and then what I was fairly sure was Adom trying to keep the Prince awake by stealing his pillow and blanket.

Atem (the Prince)'s POV

After the incredibly rude awakening from Yami, I was surprised to find that Adom had also taken his side and was now attempting to play keep away with my bed things. "Give them to me now!" When Adom just shook his head in answer, I began to get mad. "I'm ordering you to give me my things right now slave!"

That seemed to shock the larger man and it took me a second to realize why he had deflated so quickly, his body language becoming meek, trying to minimize his size. He dropped the pillow and blanket, his hands coming to rest against his chest and his head turned to the side so that he was no longer looking at me, instead looking at the floor off to my left. _Damn it! Why the hell did I have to say that?_ "Uh, look Adom, it's fine. I didn't mean- I mean, I just... I'm sorry."

After last night I'd thought things had been going better. _Well, they were going better because neither you nor Yugi told him what you said in the other room. You were just fooling yourself, thinking that you and Adom were working things out. All you did last night after Yami and Yugi left was ramble to him about what you did as a kid and how you wanted to try to help the slaves live better by keeping a closer watch on the guards. You are no better than them, trying to threaten Adom to get Yugi to tell you about his shadow powers._

Adom didn't respond to my words and when I came close to him, he flinched. _Where is the proud slave from the whipping post?_ My hand touched his shoulder gently, with the intent to communicate my apology through the soft gesture, but as soon as my fingers brushed against his skin he recoiled quickly, and I withdrew my hand. _I did this to him. He's broken, and it is my fault._

I moved away from the slave, positioning myself in the far corner of the room from Adom, and stayed there until Yami and Yugi once again entered. The smaller of the two immediately went to his brother, while Yami came to my side with a questioning look.

"Now is not the time." I murmured, taking the food that my guard handed me. It was similar to last night's meal, and I ate it without tasting much. "When will we leave?"

"As soon as we have finished here. Is there anything in particular you wanted me to acquire from the village before we leave?"

"No Yami. Thank you for the food." Yugi was trying to get Adom to eat, but the older boy was refusing yet again. "Adom, eat something."

The slave glanced at me for a moment, not even long enough for me to catch his eye, before he was shakily taking the bowl from his brother. Yugi cast a concerned look between Adom and I, but appeared somewhat relieved that the older sibling was finally eating something. "My Prince, perhaps that isn't the best idea." My guard spoke quietly so that the other two couldn't hear us. "Commanding him will not do anything to help your relations. Perhaps acting as if you were on the same footing would be more beneficial."

"I have already ruined any chance of the two of us becoming anything more than slave and Prince. He is a broken slave at best. How am I supposed to be friendly with him if he acts as if I am about to whip him every time I look at him? Not like I'm doing anything that would make him think otherwise." My voice faltered slightly, and with a quick cough I tried to wave off my old friend.

"Just be more gentle. You were quite friendly in comparison to how you usually are yesterday. What has changed?"

"I reminded him of the difference in our social standings and very harshly at that." Yami nodded in understanding, which that made me mad for some odd reason. "Don't you get it! I screwed up! I have been trying to make things better, in an apology for my mistakes, and now I've just made it worst! Have you ever seen someone like Adom flinch? He's bigger than me by a good foot, but he acts like he is the small one and I'm holding my whip again!" I didn't notice that my voice had been getting louder as I spoke, to the point where I was nearly shouting.

"My Prince?" Yugi's soft voice called hesitantly, and I glared at him for the interruption until I realized what I was doing.

"I apologize Yugi. I think that we should get going. Have you and Adom finished your food?"

"Yes sir." His voice was even softer than before, and his eyes were also downcast, similar to his brother's.

"Then let us go." Yami helped me stand and once we'd grabbed our things, we left the room. Yami met with the innkeeper in the main area, handing over coins and speaking quickly. After a few moments the innkeeper went running, returning with Menes in tow.

"I have personally prepared all of the necessary items. They will arrive shortly." As Menes spoke, more men came in with sacks that they handed to Yami and Adom, who had come to stand behind my friend as he spoke to Menes. "There is bread and dried and salted meats, as well as flasks of both ale and water. Is there anything else that you may need?"

"No. Thank you. This should cover the costs." Yami moved to hand Menes coins as well as payment, but the man tried to wave the gesture away.

"I couldn't possibly. It is a great pleasure to do something such as this for the prince and his companions."

"Then as a token of our gratitude." This time Yami forced the money into Menes' hand with a tight smile.

_He always did hate dealing with people like Menes, trying to get into my good favor for political reasons, not that there are really many politics this far from the larger cities._

"Come on."

Yugi's POV

Adom and the Prince were acting weird, or well, weirder than usual. My brother wouldn't even look at the Prince, and the royal kept sending guilty looks at my sibling. Yami and I were walking between the two, but things were strained between the two of us as well. I could feel Yami watching me from my left, the distrustfulness evident even without looking at his face, and my stomach was turning again.

The first time we stopped for a short water break, Adom handed me one of the canteens after placing all the bags on the ground, and refused to drink anything until the Prince once again ordered him to. Sighing, I watched the tension grow between my brother and the Prince, but after a few tense seconds, Adom seemed to shrink a bit, and I reached out to take his hand. Adom sent me a questioning glance and I grinned in response, hoping to lift his spirits momentarily. I was happy to just be able to touch him after last night, and it seemed as though whatever was going on between the royal and my brother was making him more forgiving of me not explaining things to him years ago.

Once we had been walking for a while, Adom slung me up onto his back with a grin that I quickly returned. He was very good at telling when I was getting tired, having done it for years where he'd carry me to bed if I had insisted on staying up later than usual or had had an unusually hard day. "Is your chest okay?" I asked quietly, not wanting to disturb the Prince and his royal guard, who were in their own hushed conversation.

Adom nodded back and used one hand to gesture that it was only itching a bit. "That means it is healing, right?" He patted my leg where it was resting against his side, which I took to mean that it was fine. "It's not an infection?" My constant questions seemed to amuse my brother more than they annoyed him, so he nodded again, and I settled down a bit.

The fact that Adom was moving around so much and that his wound was constantly being exposed to dirt and sand was making me worried, mostly because it seemed like every night the wound was ripping back open or had only healed a little bit. Either way, it was concerning, and we didn't have a healer with us to calm my fears.

"**Leave it.**" My brother told me when I reached down to brush my hand against some of the bandages. "**Itches more.**"

"Ohhhh. Okay."

The next time we stopped for water, Adom drank of his own free will, but not until he had glanced at the Prince and seen the royal looking back at him. My brother also let me down off of his back, and I was almost happy to be back on my own feet. It wasn't necessarily because I liked walking or anything of the sort, but Adom was starting to look worse for wear, not that my stubborn brute of a brother would actually say anything about it without incessant prodding.

I also had something that I wanted to discuss with the Prince now that he and Yami had finished their conversation, so when we began walking again, I positioned myself next to the royal. "My Prince?" I murmured, not wanting to disturb him too much in case he decided that he did not wish to speak with me.

"Yes Yugi?" He was looking down at me with interest, and I shifted uncomfortably, wanting to be back by Adom's side.

"If I may be so bold, I would like to ask you a question. It may seem a bit personal, but I intend no offense!" I tumbled over my words not so eloquently, but it only seemed to amuse the Prince.

"What is it?"

"What is going on between you and my brother?" The Prince actually stopped dead in his tracks, his facial features flickering through too many too quickly for me to properly process many of them, but I caught the guilt and horror as well as anger as the recurring ones.

"Nothing that you should worry about." He grumbled, turning his face away so that I couldn't look at his eyes.

"But my Prince-"

"Drop it!" the Prince snarled, and suddenly I was pulled behind my brother's back, out of arm's reach from the royal, and my brother appeared to be in the midst of deciding to run or stand and fight. Either way, things were not looking as if they were going anywhere particularly good.

**Susan: Uh, well, not quite the 10,000 words that I promised... At this point, I think you should take what I say with a grain of salt because as usual life got in the way. I suddenly had some serious family problems that needed to be dealt with, and I lost most of my set aside writing time as well as my mental capacity to focus. I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter. I think it drained me of any creative juices I had left for the next few weeks, but I will be posting a 5000 word chapter at the end of February, so be on the look out for that! To answer a question that I realized could be going through other peoples' minds after I reread part of the story and no, I do not plan on making the Prince and Adom a couple, nor will Yami and Yugi be a pairing. It is unlikely that there will be any romantic relationships in this fic. I usually keep my romantic fics and my kinda mystery ones separate. If I somehow manage to recover some of my writing ability after that long chapter, I may have a cute little one shot (different fandom, probably Hetalia, Fairy Tail, Kingdom Hearts or Sekai ichi Hatsukoi) or two ready to post for Valentine's Day. Alara's been showing me adorable Sekai ichi Hatsukoi drawings/pictures, so you can blame/thank her for that being one of the possible choices for my Valentine's Day fluff. For those who don't know what that is...I don't know what to tell you other than it is insanely cute (I watched the anime, the manga almost scarred me for life so only tread there if you wanna risk it (I probably wouldn't, but hey, go for it if you want)), but some people may not like it, so have fun! Anyway, thank you as always. If anyone has the time and or wants to talk with me about the story, leave me a review or shoot me a PM (Alara always alerts me of any messages within a day or two of receiving them, so I should get back to you in a respectable amount of time)!**


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